An effective response to a sexual harassment complaint
The issue: Company X is a multi-national company with a large workforce in Australia. It had excellent resources, including well written employment policies and procedures. When faced with an allegation of sexual harassment made by a junior employee against a senior manager, the Company found itself in very unfamiliar territory. Company X wanted to ensure both that the investigation was professionally handled by an expert investigator and that the investigation was seen to be objective.
How we helped: Devine Law at Work investigated the grievance, assessed the information we obtained and reached a conclusion on whether the complaint was substantiated or not. We then provided a very detailed report to the CEO which included quite detailed recommendations. Our method ensured compliance with all relevant workplace and work-related laws, including anti-discrimination legislation, occupational health and safety legislation, unfair dismissal legislation and contract law.
Devine Law at Work was then asked to provide services which implemented the recommendations we had made to the CEO, including providing training to managers throughout Company X and developing a system to ‘test’ the effectiveness of that training on an ongoing basis.
Comment: Company X now understands that while policies and procedures are a good first step, the test of their effectiveness is whether or not its employees truly understand their meaning and apply that understanding. While the investigation revealed a lack of understanding amongst many employees about the Company’s sexual harassment policy, Company X had cause to congratulate itself that its workplace culture had encouraged an otherwise vulnerable employee to take a stand against a very serious case of sexual harassment.
