[00:18] Now that you understand the foundation of what harassment is and where it comes from, we're going to move on to module two and then this module we're going to compare and contrast harassment to inappropriate behavior because that's the reality in our workplace, very few things rise to that extreme level of harassment (I hope) so on the inappropriate side, what does it look like? What should you do if you feel like this is happening in your workplace or we're going to pull in some company specific policies and protocols as well as the complaint procedure.

[00:50] In section two, we're going to talk about inappropriate behavior, so this stuff that's going on that maybe isn't professional, maybe doesn't align with your company goals or your code of conduct standards, and if left unaddressed, could potentially open up some risk and liability down the road for a harassment claim. But this is the stuff that at the present time doesn't rise to the level of harassment as we defined it in the prior section, and then I want to talk about some company specific policies and procedures. So what to do if you feel like this kind of stuff is going on in your workplace? Who do you tell? What are they going to do with the information that kind of thing? So let's jump in and really unpack this concept of inappropriate behavior. So in the most general of terms, this is behavior that on the surface it might seem like it's all in good fun or it's happening maybe it's not professional and you know it's not professional, but it doesn't rise to the level of harassment. This can be a problem for several reasons certainly if left unaddressed. As I said, it could lead to harassment down the road. But the bigger thing that I see in workplaces is that it creates a work culture that people don't want to be a part of. It's becoming more and more difficult to find qualified talent and if we're working really hard to bring new employees into our workplace and we're losing them just as fast because it's not a

place they want to be a part of because how it feels to work there or how they're treated then as the employer we're losing. And as the employee who's listening to this, you’re losing because every time we can't keep our staffing levels appropriate - guess who has to do the extra work - you right? The work still has to get done, but you're the only one there to do it so we all lose in this sort of situation and addressing inappropriate behavior is something that is just is important as addressing harassment.

[02:43] But the trick is defining what's appropriate because there's some degree of subjectivity to it. Some of this is based on perception - That joke that you just told - I thought it was funny and my co-worker thought it was offensive same joke to different people's perception to it. So how do we define appropriate? What can we really hang on to? To help us decide aside for our workplace and for the clients we serve? How should we be acting? Not just with our customers, our clients but with each other. I’m going to share with you A couple different work place settings just to kind of make you think through this.

[03:21] So on the one hand, think about a bar. You go to the local bar after work. It’s happy hour. You know the bartender. The bartender knows you. You're on a first name basis. It's very casual. You kind of let your guard down a little bit so you're sharing some jokes. Drinks are involved usually so alcohol loosens everybody up that the environment is much more relaxed. The bartender is probably dressed in jeans, maybe khakis, but probably genes. They look just like you or me. Compare that now to your accountant's office. At the time of us taping this, we're in tax season. So all of us are having to pull those receipts together and track down to our local accounting office or, you know, maybe you're part of a large accounting firm and when you walk into that establishment, it's a very different vibe. It's much more formal. They're handling your money so you have a certain expectation about how they interact with you. Their attire is much more formal as well, so business casual maybe even business professional. They're not necessarily joking with you. It's serious right? And it's because of what they do. The service they provide for you that the niche that they fill.

[04:30] So culture has some degree of subjectivity to it and appropriateness for sure does but there are some tenants that we can look at to help us decide what should be appropriate in our workplace. Is it who you serve? Does that drive it? So in the example of Disney World, they serve the child in all of us. So everything they do has the child in mind. So that drives their language and it drives how they dress and heck, they even have tunnels under the street so you don't see them walking - the characters walking through without their heads on, or their costumes on. Because there's an illusion and it's magical and they built their whole business and brand around that and really influences how they interact with each other not just how they interact with the customer. So think about who you interact with who is your end user? Who is your client? Who is your customer and what do they expect from you? Because that will have some influence on what's appropriate in your workplace. Think about your region: Are you in New York, where it's much more fast paced hustle and bustle and communications are somewhat abrupt - but that's Okay, because that's how they talk. Or are you down south, where the politeness right? There's a heavier emphasis on politeness. Are you in the midwest? So sometimes you're region will influence appropriate as well. But these are things that you want to be thinking about because there are unique circumstances to every industry, and every employer kind of sets their own bar. So

you're going to want to take a look at any code of conduct policies is that your employer may have or workplace behavior policies that you might have in an employee handbook to help you determine what's appropriate in your workplace. But it's important to note that regardless of setting all employees are expected to conduct themselves in a professional, courteous manner, that's really kind of our baseline here.

[06:20] I often ask this question when I'm doing an in person training on this particular topic. How do you know if you've gone too far? So let's say you tell a joke. You thought it was funny. You tell it to a group of coworkers. They all laugh. Does that mean that all of them found the joke funny? Well not necessarily, right? But when I asked these same group of employees at a training how do you know if you've crossed the line with somebody? A lot of times they'll say well body language. I know him really well and I can read their body language and I can tell if they're uncomfortable and I say really? Because I just told the joke and everybody laughs so does that mean everybody thought it was funny. If I'm reading body language, does that mean everybody thought it was funny and then I'll follow up with this question: How many of you have laughed it a joke that you found inappropriate? Half the room raises

their hand. I'm like ok, wait a minute, you're saying I know I've crossed the line because I'm reading the body language of these people that I know really well and yet half the people in the room are lying to you their body language does not reflect how they actually feel about something. Well why is that? Why would you laugh if you don't think the joke is funny? Well because maybe I'm uncomfortable and I don't know what else to do or maybe I’m new to this job and I need to make a good impression, so I laugh. Maybe it was my boss that told the joke, and again, I need this job, so I laughed. You know, I don't want to be the one that makes the scene I don't want to get that reputation, so I laughed. I mean, there's a lot of reasons that people's body language would say one thing, and their actual thoughts and feelings air very different. So relying on somebody's body language to let you know whether or not what you're doing is appropriate and acceptable is going to get you in trouble as often as it's going to tell you the truth. It’s not a sure fire way to know.

So keeping in mind that we're working towards an environment where we feel comfortable telling somebody when they've crossed the line. And that's kind of the whole trick with inappropriate behavior, that we care about each other enough to tell someone when what they've done doesn't sit well with us for whatever

reason, and it doesn't have to be only afford and protected classifications. We're all in this together. We're all trying to create a work environment that we want to be in and that others want to be in, so we all have to bear the burden on this. You have to be willing to say something so people know because a lot of times this inappropriate stuff it's not done maliciously, it's not done to make people feel uncomfortable, it's not done to put people in their place. It's done out of pure, blissful ignorance, they just don't know. So care enough about your co-workers to say something takes courage. It takes a level of trust, but that's, really one of the things that I'm hoping you walk away with from this training is just the encouragement that that's the first step. And certainly if somebody brings something to your attention, respect the fact that they told you. You don't have to agree with it. You don't have to defend yourself about why you said it. It makes no difference on how they felt about it, so you don't have to defend yourself. Just simply thank them for being courageous enough to tell you so that you know not to do it the next time. Use a little common sense and pay attention to the non-verbals, even though they're not a foolproof way to tell whether or not somebody's offended. Certainly it can be a helpful indicator, though.

[09:39] So I've talked about company policies a little bit at this point in the presentation, I'm going to refer you to your employee handbook if you have one, your employees harassment policy, anti harassment policy, if you have one.

[09:55] If not, I have including the supplemental materials, a sample policy that would be a good jumping off point for your organization to consider. So it's going to define again the concept of harassment so everybody knows what it is. It's going very clearly state that as an organization we don't tolerate this kind of behavior. It’s going to list out a complaint procedure, so if something's going on this is who you tell. And an anti-retaliation component, that if you exercise your right to file a complaint, we will investigate that we will treat it

as confidentially as possible, and we will take action based on what we find and you will not be retaliated against because you brought something forward. So that's kind of the essence of what a good sexual harassment and discriminatory harassment policy would include. Again, I'm going to refer you to your company policies if you've got something on that, and if you don't there’s a supplemental one in the materials.

[10:47] At the end of the day, your employer has some responsibility when it comes to sexual harassment and discriminatory harassment. Listed here are just those obligations. First and foremost is if you don't have a policy create one and implement it. It's not enough to have it in writing. You have to make sure that it's well communicated to all employees. Again if you have an employee handbook, that's one way that employers and organizations choose to disseminate information. Having it via email. Having it as part of your orientation and on-boarding process and certainly annual training such as this are just a good way to reiterate how important this topic is. Training employees - It can be done face to face. It can be done in an online version. It could be a review of the policy in a signature at the bottom. Again, just keeping this front and center in people's minds.

A good policy has to talk about the investigation procedures as well. Your employer has an obligation to investigate all claims that are brought forward to them. Now I have a note on here and this is important for all of you to know. When a claim is brought forward your employer cannot promise anonymity. In other words, they can't promise to keep your name out of it. Here's what I mean by that: When you bring something forward, your employer is going to want all the facts. If you're the one that's bringing and claim for where they're going to ask you for details. What happened? Who was involved? When did it happen? Specific examples of quotes, or if there are emails or text messages involved? Any witnesses? That kind of thing. Just try to get all of the details, and then they're going to look through and figure out what they can substantiate. So they're going to want to talk to any of the witnesses that you've named to see what their recollection of the events were. They're going to talk to the individual that is being accused to find out what their viewpoint on this is, or what their memory of the event is. And then, based on all of that information, together, they'll decide whether or not the claim has merit. It might be proven that this is, in fact an example of harassment, in which case the person who was accused would receive some sort of disciplinary action up to and including termination. But even if it doesn't rise to the level of harassment, you might find that other company policies and procedures were broken. A code of conduct policy, for example. So maybe this was inappropriate behavior, it was unprofessional, and so we still are going to address that. So part of that investigation requires that in order to get the facts, we have to be able to share information about: Who did it happen to? When did it happen? What happened? et cetera. So we can't promise to keep your name out of it because we can't conduct a thorough investigation when we can't use your name. It's really difficult to sit the accused individual down and talk in generality, and then hope to get anything meaningful out of them. So we will do everything we can as an employer to protect your confidentiality, and what I mean by that, is we will keep the circle small of people who know about this. It's a need to know only basis, but we can't promise anonymity. So confidentiality and anonymity are not the same thing, but we'll do everything we can to protect confidentiality and then after we investigate, take appropriate action based on what we find and make sure they were acting consistently across the board. So

those air the basic elements or criteria that every employer is responsible for on this particular topic.

[14:11] As far as the complaint procedure goes again, I'm going to point you back to your company specific policy. But in general, a complaint procedure would instruct employees to go to leadership first and most of the time it's any leader. You might have a policy that lists one or two individuals, but you really can take these concerns to any leader within the organization, and it doesn't have to be your direct supervisor. Because your direct supervisor might be involved. They might be the one that you have the complaint against, so you have to have more than one reporting method and more than one reporting vessel. And so that first line of supervisors, managers, directors are typically going to be listed as an option for you. Generally speaking, company ownership is also going to be listed as an option. So presidents, executive directors, CEOs, that kind of thing. And then many times there will be a third option, which if you have HR on staff, it would be your HR departments. They're kind of that impartial third party, but if you don't have HR on staff, some small organizations will have an HR designee. So it could be a consulting company that they have a relationship with. It could be an attorney that they have on retainer.

Somebody outside of the organization that they have a relationship with that could be that extra option for reporting. Especially like I said, if the company is very small and we want to make sure that you have more than one person that you could tell. So I'm going to point you back to your company specific procedures in this area. But generally speaking, it's leadership and HR that you can report these kinds of concerns to.

[15:48] I said it before, I'll say it again: Retaliation is just as illegal as harassment. We talked about this in section one, where we were explaining the evolution of harassment and how retaliation has now made illegal. You can't take adverse action so you can take a negative employment action against somebody that is exercising a right that they have. And that's true under many laws. There’s a Whistleblower Protection Act that says exactly that. So if you have a sexual harassment or discriminatory harassment policy and you have a complaint or reporting procedure, which all employers should have and you as an employee, exercise your right under that policy to bring a complaint forward, you can't be disciplined as a result of bringing the claim. If you bring a false claim and it's now knowingly and maliciously fault that's a different issue. But if in good faith, you bring a claim forward, even if throughout the investigation process it's found to have little or no merit, you can't receive some adverse

employment action as a result of that. And this is something that I'm going to talk about in the next module, because leadership plays a big role in creating an environment where we take this kind of thing seriously and again, the emphasis is on if something's bothering you, we want you to be able to go to that person first and let him know. But if that's not possible or makes you uncomfortable, you've got other options. And we never want to put road blocks in your way. That would prevent you from utilizing those options. Because at the end of the day, we want to create a workplace in a work culture that people want to be a part of. And this is one of the ways that we do it.

[17:30] So I'm going to leave you now with another quick quiz again, multiple choice just to make sure we have a really good understanding of the intersection between harassment and inappropriate behavior, as well as some your company specific policies related to this topic. Regardless of what answer you choose, you'll get some information about that answer to help. You understand a little bit deeper. How that question might have applied. And then we'll meet back here for section three, which is focused on leadership.