Harassment in the workplace

[HersheyS]

Pennsylvania

On Thursday April 10 I was harassed by an assistant director of maintenance who is scheduled to retire on April 30th. I went over to his office to show him some blueprints when he stood up and gave me a hug. I thought this was alright because we were saying good-bye because he would be leaving soon. But then he rubbed his hand up on the side of my left breast. At first I thought it was a mistake but he did it a second time so I pulled myself out of the hug and before I could say anything he was touching the underwire of my bra. He asked me what the wire was and I said "That is my bra, quit it, stop it" (I'm not sure which of those two phrases I said) He acted like he did not hear me and then reached towards me asking if he could see my bra. I said "No!" and he laughed like it was a joke. Another employee entered the room and I left.
In our company policy it states to report an incident of harassment to either your supervisor, department head or any member of human resources. Also keep in mind that in our own policy it states that sexual harassment is ,in part, ....such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an employee's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment. I work in HR so of course I told my boss, the director of HR. She waited until Monday April 14th at 1:00pm to confront this man.
To make this shorter after the meeting she told me that this man claimed that he did not intend to touch me and that he did not remember asking to see my bra. His words were "I am not saying that she is lying, I could have asked her to see her bra because I joke around with people all of the time."
They are letting this man work until Friday while they make me work at a different property so that we don't see each other, which is unreasonably interfering with my work. While he gets to retire a couple of weeks early.
Working in HR I know that it is our policy to involve our safety and security departments in cases such as these. When I asked why they were not involved my boss told me that it would have been up to be to notify security which I know is incorrect. It does not say anything in our handbook about the victim having to notify Security.
I feel like the company that I work for has been negligent in my case. Would I have a case against them in court?
Thank you for any responses or enlightment you are able to give me on this situation.

~Hershey

 

[Beth3]

No, you don't have a case against them. Having complained of SH, your employer's obligation is to investigate and if they determine SH occured, to put a stop to it. Your employer has fulfilled this obligation. This person was already scheduled to retire. They've moved his retirement date up and as a very short interim solution, they've moved you to another area so you don't have to encounter him.

While I understand why you'd like to see him have some major consequences for what he did, the fact that he has an end of employment date just a few weeks away makes your employer's steps quite reasonable. He's already scheduled to be gone and consequently he'll never be able to do this to you or anyone else at work again.

Listen - it's clear they believe he did what you said. I've conducted enough SH investigations to know that an idiotic statement from the accused such as, "I am not saying that she is lying, I could have asked her to see her bra because I joke around with people all of the time." speaks volumes. They're also running him out the door two weeks early. He's ending his career in shame - he knows it and he knows his employer knows it.

 

[HersheyS]

Thank you for your quick response!

I am just having a problem with the way that they conducted this investigation. Working in HR I know that we Always include Safety and Security in our investigations automatically and in my case they tired to tell me that the victim is the one to contact security when I know this is not true.

I spoke with a representative of the Security department this morning and he informed me that HR is always the one to involve security unless the person reports to security in the first place.

I am not looking to gain anything personally out of this but rather trying to make sure that someone else does not have to go through the run-around that they put me through.

I work in HR and they are giving me false information I can't imagine what they do to others who file complaints.

I guess it is just a matter of having to talk to my supervisor about this again and having her explain to me once again why things turned out the way they did.

Thank you so much for your help! I really appreciate it!

~Hershey

 

[Beth3]

You're welcome. I can't account for why you were told that it was up to you to contact safety and security but my take on the situation is that (a) after what he said to the VP of HR, it was obvious as heck that he was guilty, and (b) he already had a term date and moving it up was the most obvious, easiest, and quickest solution.

With the guilt evident and the perfect solution at hand, I can only assume there was no need to involve another department.

 

[HersheyS]

Thank you again and I am sorry to keep bothering you. But I just read over my initial post and I left out an important fact.

After the investigation I asked my supervisor (the Director of HR) if what the man did to me was a Violation of Company Policy and in the case that it was (because I believe that it was) why wasn't he escorted off the property, like other VCP's, by security?
She told me that it was not a VCP because he did this unintentionally and that our stories didn't match (meaning he didn't remember saying what he said and I do remember). She also said that it wasn't like he raped me or grabbed me (which I think was totally uncalled for). But as I said before it interfered with my work. So would not that have been a violation?

I think I am just confused. I am upset because without the involvement of security in this case nothing will be documented in his file and he will leave with a good rehire status ( I think it should be a no rehire status) so if he wanted to come back and work part-time with one of our properties he would be allowed to do so.

I just don't think that is right.

Thanks again! Sorry to bother you!

~Hershey

 

[Beth3]

You're not a bother and I do understand how upset you are about what this man did to you.

But listen, I think you're focused on the wrong things here. You're looking at company adminstrative policies and not the law. The law requires your employer to investigate. The law requires your employer to put a stop to if if prohibited discrimination/harassment is occuring. That's it. Your employer has met their obligations under the law. I can only assume they didn't follow the standard policy manual because the guy was already scheduled to retire in a couple of weeks, consequently that just wasn't necessary.

The guy didn't agree to retire earlier than planned just for the heck of it.

I know you'd like to hear your VP say "Yes, he's guilty and I believe every word you said" and you'd like to see him suffer some sort of public acknowledgement of what he did, such as being escorted off the premesis by security. There are any number of reasons why that hasn't/isn't going to happen that you likely aren't privy to and they're not going to tell you about.

I can only suggest you trust your VP's judgement that she's handling this in the best possible way for both you and the company. The guy is two days away from being gone forever which is the most important thing.

 

[HersheyS]

Thank you for all of your help Beth, I really appreciate it!