5 ms·
Giving compliments is risky. At an HR anti-sexual harassment training we were told not to give compliments, even on something as trivial as a hair cut. We were
by jdavis703 5y ago
Giving compliments is risky. At an HR anti-sexual harassment training we were told not to give compliments, even on something as trivial as a hair cut. We were advised that instead of saying “Your haircut looks nice” to say “Did you get a haircut this weekend.”
It’s kind of sad that society has become so litigious that even compliments are dangerous. But anyways, since people think compliments are creepy, I’ve started only giving them to close people.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> It’s kind of sad that society has become so litigious that even compliments are dangerous. Can you cite a case demonstrating that compliments are dangerous? Or was the training perhaps a product of the bubble-of-safety cargo cult HR cycle where there is a real behavior that us established as dangerous, this accurate information enters conventional wisdom, then to create a zone of safety around the dangerous area people are trained that the not only the dangerous behavior but other behaviors that bear some similarity are to be avoided, this becomes conventional wisdom of dangerous behavior, then to create a zone of safety people are trained that additional behaviors similar to those from the previous cycle are to be avoided, etc.
- GoblinSlayer 5y agoDue to false allegations it's dangerous even when you do nothing, so logically it's more dangerous when you do anything.
- awb 5y ago> Can you cite a case demonstrating that compliments are dangerous? Take your pick of any sexual harassment lawsuit. Employee walks by. Boss: "Nice [body part]".
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Take your pick of any sexual harassment lawsuit. I’ve studied more than a few, both where liability was ultimately and where it wasn't. All of them—including the ones where no liability was found—involved mich more than that. So, again, can you cite a case demonstrating that compliments are dangerous?
- awb 5y ago> we were told not to give compliments, even on something as trivial as a hair cut Probably more accurately: we were told not to give compliments on someone’s physical appearance. No?
- nuclearnice1 5y agoYou think the poster invented the haircut example? Interesting. i enjoyed the follow-on bit where HR suggested not complimenting the physical appearance, but still feel free to comment on it in a neutral way. Where did they see the next 30 seconds of that conversation going?
- awb 5y ago> You think the poster invented the haircut example? Interesting. No. I’m not sure how you got the impression. My point was that HR isn’t anti-compliment, they’re anti-compliments on people’s physical appearance, which includes haircuts. I’m not commenting on wether that’s appropriate or not, but thought it was an important qualifier.
- nuclearnice1 5y ago> I’m not sure how you got the impression. I was over-reading "more accurately" Yes I agree with your interpretation of the motive behind the specific example.
- jdavis703 5y agoNo this is literally the example we were given. I have no idea if the trainer actually heard of a case where someone was penalized for this, or if they concocted a trivial example to make the lesson clearer.
- specialist 5y agoI try to praise actions, ideas, contributions, effort. During code reviews, I explicitly list all the things I like. During meetings, I'll restate someone's idea, then say why I like it. If I haven't seen someone for a while, maybe I'll say "Great to see you!" Etc.