There’s No Such Thing as Appropriate Touching in Business and at Work – ONLY NO TOUCHING AT ALL

Aside and apart from the frustration I’m experiencing as an HR practitioner listening to a white-collar defense attorney with no apparent employer-side labor law experience attempting via the media and the equally apparent bully pulpit to publicly litigate and discredit the results of the sexual harassment investigation conducted by the NYS Attorney General’s office and the complainants involved (I say “attempt,” as the attorney doesn’t appear to understand the difference between the workplace investigation standard of a 51% or greater chance that the harassment occurred vs. this attorney’s attempt to disprove the results of the investigation beyond a reasonable doubt, which is not the workplace investigation standard), I’d like to clarify a simple yet critical point.

There is no distinction between “inappropriate touching” and “appropriate touching” in the workplace. NYS and Federal law and regulation specifically and clearly don’t care about the intent of the touching – what is actionable is the impact of the touching.

Therefore: there’s no “appropriate” kissing, touching, hugging, caressing, squeezing – you get the picture.

For that reason alone: including but not limited to leaders and managers who have positional power over their employees: there should be no touching at all in the workplace.  A simple concept that I reiterate repeatedly with the above examples and more when I conduct No-Harassment training. Moreover, leaders and managers are held to a higher standard of responsibility from both a compliance and moral standpoint.

Any questions?