Sexual Harassment 2022 - Sexual Harassment: Managing the Critical Business Financial and Human Resources Issues

Sexual harassment claims increasingly expose your organization to significant business, financial, and human resources-related costs and liabilities. Potential claims now often exceed six-figure numbers. More importantly, sexual harassment increases recruitment and hiring costs increase absenteeism and turnover costs, lowers employee morale, reduces job performance, and results in lost productivity. As a result, if your company has a 6% profit margin, it will have to generate $1,667,000 in new sales to cover the costs of each sexual harassment claim or award of $100,000.
Thus, while the financial liabilities of sexual harassment can be substantial, they represent only a part of the total cost. To the extent sexual harassment defines how your organization values its employees, your organization increasingly becomes a place to avoid. To the extent that your organization accepts sexual harassment as an incidental working condition, you tell employees, applicants, and third parties that we don’t value you. And to the extent your organization does not take immediate action to correct problems, you demonstrate that they should look for employment elsewhere.