Wherever 2 or More Employees Gather is the Workplace and a No-Harassment Zone in Business and at Work

I love our area’s burgeoning StartUp Tech Valley community: attending the monthly StartUp Tech Valley meeting, listening to current and future fellow entrepreneurs speak about their respective business visions and missions inspires and energizes me.

After hearing about a few minor harassment incidents through the community grapevine, I wanted to start the conversation to ensure the safety of all community members; knowledge and dialogue are typically the first logical steps in preventing / stopping workplace (and greater business community) harassment. I put together a 7-minute pitch for the community meeting this month to start the conversation. “I’m not here to talk about my business tonight,” I began. “I’m here to talk about ensuring the safety of our community.  I’d like you to listen in the same context as you would listen to a cyber security pitch – the only difference is that I’m talking about people security, which is critical to the success of all of our businesses and our community.”

Before delivering the pitch, I asked one of the talented individuals who had had a (thankfully) minor harassment experience with a fellow community member to review my pitch to ensure ultimate understanding. Their advice was to start with the compliance fact that anywhere 2 or more employees gather outside the official workplace is considered to be an extension of the workplace for state and federal compliance purposes. “I’m guessing it’s going to be news to many people in the room that 2 or more employee together even outside of the workplace is a no-harassment zone!” they observed. It usually is.  Here’s the slide from the pitch, below:

The picture of the 2 women in the middle, by the way, is a classic example of visual harassment, per the scale below:

In other words: wherever 2 or more employees are gathered – in a restaurant, a bar, an offsite meeting, etc. – those scenarios are considered extensions of the workplace, and no-harassment boundaries (especially the new NYS boundaries which include non-employees) apply and must be enforced.

How do you prevent / stop harassment on and offsite wherever 2 or more employees gather, in business and at work?