‘Tis the season for Sexual Harassment Prevention Training for supervisors. The state as mandated training for supervisors in companies with at least 50 employees since 2007. You can suffer through the two hours on-line or with me. And, God help me, I love teaching this class. I never know what to expect, even after conferring with the HR manager to identify what current issues I should weave into my presentation.
For a company a few years ago, the issue was calling people by their right name. Really? Are people being referred to as “honey” anywhere but in a diner these days? Side note: at the NCAA regional playoffs in the south a few years ago, my brother said he was having the time of his life. “What’s not to like?” he said. “I have the 4 B’s: basketball, beer, BBQ, and the waitresses all call me ‘baby.’”
As it turns out, I was able to find a court case illustrating the dangers of not calling people by their name: two Tyson Foods employees were awarded a settlement for being called “boy.” Yep, they were black and the employees who kept being promoted over them were white, as was their supervisor.
I once investigated a claim where the supervisor was accused of touching an employee’s breast. When she called him on it, he said, “I didn’t touch your breast. If I had I would have done this”. And proceeded to rest his whole hand over her breast for a few seconds.
And then there was the female employee who lifted her blouse to show her coworkers her new breasts, the male supervisor walks in and says “I want to see”, and she obliges.
At a recent class the conversation was heated and focused on the employer being held hostage by conniving employees who manufacture incidences in order to make a claim of harassment. And, yes, it happens. But, really, the focus needs to be on training your co-workers to know the boundaries of professional and respectful behavior, and training your supervisors to not be stupid.
Read the cases above again and tell me: who is the most stupid? Tyson Foods – hands down it was the supervisor, even though he said he didn’t “mean anything” by it. Breast touching supervisor or the employee, who, the day before, had gone to lunch with the guy and showed him provocative photos of herself? The employee who showed off her new breasts to the male supervisor or, him, thinking that meant he could try to kiss her?
There are 13 protected classes in the state of California: race, color, religion, etc. We have to be very careful to not discriminate against employees in these classes. We have done enough harm to them over the years that fair treatment is legislated now. But you can rest assured: Stupid is not a protected class. Sometimes dangerous, but not protected. Feel free to discriminate against stupid all you want. Please.
