Harassment Investigations What Comes Next - Workology

Harassment Investigations What Comes Next - Workology The Bully Solution: Stop Accommodating Them With the rise of #metoo and #timesup, HR offices are ensuring more and better training to staff on harassment and what do to if you are harassed, or see harassment. With more training comes more complaints, which is good. Its what you want. You want people to report harassment. We talk a lot about this as HR professionals. We talk about how to create a process to allow staff to report, how to conduct an investigation, and what to do when you have a finding (when you decide that the person reporting  â€" the complainant  â€" was harassed). What we dont talk a lot about is what to do if there isnt a finding. Because if there isnt a finding, it doesnt mean that everything is A-okay. Getting to the Bottom of the Complaint Theres a reason the employee reported a concern. And that concern doesnt just go away because you send them a letter full of legalese stating there was no harassment. Does that employee really understand why what happened wasnt harassment? Perhaps the training wasnt clear as to what you as an organization define as harassment. Perhaps the employees complaint is minor, but they dont feel comfortable going to their supervisor (or higher) in their department to address the concern. Perhaps the behavior doesnt reach the level of harassment, but is either walking a fine line or the perpetrator is an equal-opportunity bully. In all of these cases, there is a lot of work do to after the investigation. What to Do if Training Was Unclear Perhaps your training didnt provide clear direction on how your organization defines harassment. Was the training designed specifically for your organization or did you get something off the shelf to save a few bucks? Talk with the employee to determine why they thought the behavior was harassment. Find out where the breakdown happened and help them understand what harassment is. Then review your training. Take the training yourself (especially if it is an online training). Ask people outside your organization to take the training and give you feedback. Can they define harassment after they take your training? How to Build Trust with Department Leadership This is a little trickier and is going to take a lot longer to solve. This is leadership training and coaching. You need to find out why staff dont feel comfortable approaching leadership. You will want to be sure to talk to more people in the department to determine if it is just this one employee or an overall feeling within the department.   This will help you decide if the situation involves all leaders or just one. I would still recommend training and coaching for all leaders within the department. Its also a good idea to do some team building within the department to increase the trust across all levels. For an employee to take a minor issue to HR for investigation shows that trust is missing. We need to help the department rebuild the trust and hold them accountable for building the trust within their department. The Bully Solution: Stop Accommodating Them I feel that this issue is just now, finally, starting to be addressed. For a long time, we wouldnt do anything about bullying because bullying isnt against the law. We use the legal definition of harassment, which doesnt account for someone being a bully, as long as they are treating everyone poorly. We need to hold our staff to a higher standard. We need to ensure that all staff are treated as professionals and stop hiding behind what is legal. HRs Overall Responsibilities Our responsibility with harassment doesnt end with the investigation. Just because there is no harassment doesnt mean there isnt an issue that needs to be addressed. We need to be sure we find the underlying issues that led to the complaint and help the department or leader rebuild the trust and team.