Online Webinar 2019 - 3 Hrs Live Webinar on Harassment and Workplace Culture

Session Highlights:
This webinar will cover best practices in harassment policy, prevention, training, and investigations.
• Determining obligations to prevent and correct.
• EEOC considerations
• Meeting employee expectations regarding harassment free workplaces.
• What is harassment and other workplace harassment – defined.
• How to audit and update your harassment policy.
· What to add, what to keep and what might need to go
• Harassment training today – what training needs to include.
· How to audit your existing training
• How managers are the front line in preventing harassment.
· Educating managers in their responsibilities to prevent and correct harassment, including the importance of their reporting responsibilities.
• Steps to take if you get a complaint.
• Appropriate steps to take when harassment allegations are founded.
• Diversity dinosaurs = more evidence. What to do with those individuals who just “don’t get it.”
• Stopping complaint retaliation in its tracks.
Overview
Harassment in the workplace has been a serious subject for decades, yet a surprising number of employers’ harassment prevention efforts still consist of a boilerplate policy and occasional training of a list of Do’s and Don’ts. Complaints are often ignored or not properly investigated.
Today such minimal actions do not suffice to meet expectations – those of employers and those from their employees. In 1998 the Supreme Court defined expectations of employers to avoid or limit legal liability in harassment cases. Now in 2019, at least twenty states have some type of requirements for training. The reminder of states are clear in their positions that even if not specifically required, quality training is recommended and viewed favorably when making decisions. What is clear is that if an employer wants to avoid or limit legal liability in harassment claims, a good policy and training to prevent and correct harassment is critical in preventing problems and for developing a first line of compliance defense.
Interestingly, while many employers chafe at such obligations, such requirements actually force the employer to do that, which will in the event of a complaint, be in its own best interests to limit liability. In regards to risk management, a policy and subsequent training is the first evidence an employer presents to show they were attempting to meet their obligations to their employees to provide a harassment free workplace. Operationally, an effective policy and good training are the foundation of handling problems effectively as swell as avoiding or limiting legal liability. However, training and policy are only as good as the people and the processes put into place to back up protocols.
An employer’s obligations do not end with prevention efforts. How the employer acts (or not) upon receipt of policy complaint is the second critical piece of an employer’s defense or lack thereof – its duty to correct. Yet it is astounding, as we often see displayed in the news, how many of the very individuals named in the reporting and correction procedures, fail to fulfill obligations, thereby rendering the whole procedure as less than effective. In reality, an employer not following its own policies and procedures actually demonstrates an employer doesn’t mean what it says, thereby creating untrust, fear and disbelief.
Harassment is not just a compliance problem, it is a people problem. Today’s employees are better-informed, have a heightened awareness, and less tolerance for workplace issues that may have been overlooked even a few short years ago. Today’s employees speak up promptly regarding unacceptable conduct. Employees have increased expectations of actions employers will take to avoid and correct workplace harassment.
In today’s workplace, harassment complaints are certain to occur. How a company prevents, and solves (or not) harassment problems helps an employer defend against legal liability (or not) and can send a message to employees that they work for an ethical company – or not. Today’s Human Resources professional finds himself or herself in uncharted territory trying to train, investigate and rectify situations. Learning on the job can be costly in a number of way to the employer, not just in attorney fees or judgments, but also in loss of employees, damage to morale, vicious social media coverage, and damage of reputations and loss of productivity that can take years to repair.
Who will Benefit:
Anyone who has to do investigations, fact findings, or solve employee relations problems and disputes
Plant Managers
Front Line Managers
HR Managers
Branch Managers
Those with Employee Relations Positions
Speaker:
Teri is the founder and President of Hindsight Human Resources
Teri Morning, MBA, MS, specializes in solving company "people problems." She provides HR department expertise to small and mid sized companies.
Teri also sources HR software solutions for incident tracking, employee relations, safety (Incident Tracker), compensation (Compease) and performance management (Performance Pro).
Twenty+ years human resource and training experience in a variety of fields, including retail, distribution, architectural, engineering, consulting, manufacturing (union), public sector and both profit and non-profit companies.
Teri has enjoyed consulting with employers on their problems and trained managers and employees for over 20 years, meeting and working with employees from all types of businesses.
In addition to a MBA, Teri has a Master's degree in Human Resource Development with a specialization in Conflict Management.