Hugging Your Employees Can Impact as Harassment in Business and at Work

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As I continue to conduct NYS Harassment Prevention and Awareness Training, hugging employees keeps coming up, e.g.: you mean I shouldn’t hug my employees?

That’s exactly what I mean.

It’s the classic intent vs. impact discussion. Your intention as my manager is to show that you care about me by hugging me. The actual impact on me can vary; however, the risk involved in creating a negative impact on me is too great a risk. I can’t read your mind, so I don’t definitively know what the hug’s intention is.

I do know that you’re my manager and you have power over me. If you want to hug me, and I don’t want your hug and/or to hug you back, I may accept the hug anyway with the fear that it’ll impact my job negatively if I don’t. And that impact is where harassment can take root, and grow.

Which is why hugging your employees can impact as harassment in business and at work.