4 ms·
I've been through this kind of thing. It's very unpleasant, frightening even. Hang in there! From your critical incident report here there was no inappropria
by OliverJones 10y ago
I've been through this kind of thing. It's very unpleasant, frightening even. Hang in there!
From your critical incident report here there was no inappropriate physical contact or attempted coercion between these two people. Make sure that's correct. If your senior HR person or some other executive of your company is experienced with this (meaning: has done it before) have her/him conduct an investigation. If you don't have experience in house get your lawyer to do the investigation. Get it done; don't let it sit.
Base your decision about disciplining or terminating the guy with bad boundaries on the results of the investigation. Ask your investigator how to confront him, and follow that advice. As hard as it is to imagine right how, anti-harrassment discipline is a dish best served cold, not hot. It's also best served promptly.
You need to do the anti-harassment seminar. You need to let your whole team know this kind of stuff is not condoned or ignored in your company, because it's not who you are. Your lawyer's office can probably provide the seminar. (Our lawyers did a great job with our seminar.)
You need to establish a policy about harassment if you don't already have one. There are plenty of good template policies around. If you work with a payroll service they probably have one you can use. And you need to require all your people to take the seminar. It should be part of your onboarding process.
If you sack this guy don't worry about a wrongful termination suit. Do what's right for your business. You'll have the investigation paperwork, and the state commission on such matters will very likely look at it and say "case closed," if the guy bothers to go after you.
Also don't worry about people in your company worrying about who's going to get whacked next. Just make it clear that respect, civilized behavior, and good interpersonal boundaries are a vital part of your company culture. You could even go so far as to say "no aholes."
Good luck. But you won't need luck. You'll just need the strength to get through it, which you have.