Managers Must Stop Both Reported AND Observed Sexual Harassment in Business and at Work

As reported last week by the Associated Press and featured in the Albany, NY Times Union:

One woman says a male co-worker at her state job (the Glens Falls, NY office of the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities) grabbed her head and forced it between his legs. Another woman says the same man exposed his penis to her while she worked in her cubicle. A third says the man pulled her into a small room, unzipped his pants and said, “Why don’t we just get this over with?”

All three told The Associated Press that no one did anything significant about their complaints against Chad Dominie for at least two years, until one of the women said he grabbed her by the arms and threatened to sexually assault her in October 2017. That accusation prompted a call to police and a harassment charge against Dominie, an administrative assistant in a small office of a New York state agency that helps the disabled.

Aggressive policies aren’t of much use if managers don’t take action.

They said the two supervisors witnessed the behavior and didn’t properly handle multiple complaints, some of which date to at least 2015. Instead of reporting them for further investigation, the women said, the supervisors would repeatedly call Dominie in for meetings with his accusers and ask him to “do better.” The women said he would reform for a few days, only to go back to his old ways.

Aside from the horrendous experiences of these employees, this story is a cautionary tale for employers, managers and supervisors:

• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance on investigating harassment provides that, “[a]s soon as management learns about alleged harassment, it should determine whether a detailed fact-finding investigation is necessary.” The employer then has an “obligation to take prompt effective steps that will end current harassment and deter future harassment by the harasser or others.”  In other words: it doesn’t matter if a formal sexual harassment complaint is filed or not: the employer, their managers and supervisors are obligated to investigate and stop harassment. 
• All of the sexual harassment incidents mentioned above also merit a call to 911 / the police. The failure of the employer, their managers and supervisors to take appropriate corrective action to stop the harassment (e.g., call the police, immediately suspend and then terminate the harasser, etc.) is a clear and repeated failure to keep their employees safe, in addition to noncompliance with employer mandates to prevent and stop harassment.
• Did the employer provide sexual harassment prevention training on at least an annual basis for all managers, supervisors and employees? Were multiple contacts outside their Glens Falls office provided for employees to use when their managers and supervisors repeatedly failed to stop the harassment for at least 2 years? It would seem that the answer is no to both questions.

Do you (and your managers and supervisors) investigate and stop sexual and other harassment whether it’s reported or observed first-hand, in business and at work?