411–420 of 622 posts
I am not a lawyer, but: Apart from the "Milf" comment I don't see much in your description of events that would qualify as sexual harassment (at least not from my European view of things). Certainly unprofessional but not quite sexually harassing. As far as I understand, the transgressions were "only" verbal and there was no other inappropriate behaviour. Here's what I would do: Collect all the facts and evidence abo…
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> I think the consensus in the grown-up business world is "fire immediately for cause." Not in my experience, and it's not the law (as taught in the myriad of training courses I've endured over the years). The man should have an opportunity to learn from this mistake, then be fired when he proves incapable of learning. Providing the warning and training is enough to legally cover the company's ass if the guy screws u…
Its a shame to see how aggressively this is being down-voted. All you're saying is to take a step back and try to improve the behavior before firing the guy. Face to face dialogue, communication, etc etc is much more likely to prevent this in the future. Just firing him is kicking the can down the road to the next company.
Jobs are jobs, not training programs. It's not wrong to expect someone to just be able to do their job without opening the company up to lawsuits. People are fired for incompetence of all kinds -- no one is guaranteed a job. And do you really want to spend an hour a week discussing with this guy that MILF isn't appropriate workplace language and then checking in with all the coworkers to make sure he's not secretly getting away with more? What a waste of company resources on an adult who certainly knows better.
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It's not a mistake. He didn't leave the server room door open. He called her a MILF.... TO HER FACE. He's not 12 (I assume). If he hasn't learned to be respectful to women before now, it's not this guy's job to teach him.
Per the side of the story we know. Do you know something not present in this narrative? The use of 'milf', whether it's derogatory or a compliment, will depend entirely on the context of the larger conversation. Something we don't have. Something which apparently the OP didn't have either.
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I'm wondering this too, mainly because the OP said "just hired". Most employment agreements have a probationary period (e.g., 3 months) where the employer can terminate the new hire without cause.
Most employment agreements (in the US) absolutely do not have a probationary period of that kind. That would be quite unusual.
Don't let cancerous employees into your organization. Don't allow him to harass another one of your employees.
Fire him.
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She reported it to the founder, presented evidence, and made it clear that the conduct was unwelcome. I'm done at "milf".
The 4 things you mentioned are still false. She made it clear to the FOUNDER that the conduct was unwelcome. Did she tell it to the new employee? Did he repeatedly talk to her in the same manner after being told it was unwelcome? We don't know. I have no problem calling a coworker an "asshole", especially on my own time while taking a beer with him. Without context, that the new employee said "milf" doesn't convey an…
What happens when you don't fire the guy? Say later on, for whatever reason, SHE has a bone to pick with the company. Now the FOUNDER is the guy who got a harrassment case and "didn't take it seriously". What's the founder's responsibility to protect his company? Don't see how he needs that risk.
While your business might be your life, for most of your employees it's only a job. This means that for most of them, it must be pleasant. They must be able to joke around and even, occasionally, flirt. If you try to turn every social interaction into a perfectly professional unfriendly and unsexualised environment, you will very quickly find that you are the only one left. This is even more relevant in a small start…
While your business might be your life, for most of your employees it's only a job. This means that for most of them, it must be pleasant. They must be able to joke around and even, occasionally, flirt. If you try to turn every social interaction into a perfectly professional unfriendly and unsexualised environment, you will very quickly find that you are the only one left. This is even more relevant in a small start…
> How is she going to react if you fire his ass? Wouldn't it be acting like she can't take care of herself? You know, it occurs to me you can't have this both ways: take care of yourself and rat out the fiend to the boss above. "Hello, 911? There is a robbery at Elm and 41st. But don't send anyone, I can take care of these dudes! One of the perpetrators saw me using my phone, so if police arrive, they will know it wa…
That's blatant manipulation.
Just to play devil's advocate: how hard is it to spoof whatsapp/slack messages if one wanted to get someone fired? If he denies that he sent the messages, or says he sent messages but the content has been altered where could the employer go then? "She's trying to get me sacked because ...". Where could you go from there to prove he committed an offense against propriety/policy? Also, a perhaps more realistic issue is…
Easy. Same with telegram. And with HushSMS you can change the text of already sent SMS messages. And lets not get into the real devious stuff. Especially if your company sysadmin is accomplice.
On the other hand - the story rings true. They guy made advance, was rejected, she informed the boss - it sounded to me like she wanted to avoid a potential "two weeks on a business trip" scenario with the guy in the future and not to cause company drama.
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The context is irrelevant. Whether or not it was intended as a compliment, or even received as a compliment does not matter. It was inappropriate for the workplace.
If this was "after hours" between two adults? Was it a couple comments, that got rebuffed (You think I'm cute? Thank you, but I'm not interested) and was then dropped? Was it repeated comments that continued after "she" said no? I wouldn't use those terms with someone at work, during working hours... I wouldn't think it's earth ending to compliment someone after hours, outside of the work place (The terminology is a…
The female employee has little recourse to stop the advance, and has not approved it. Workplace courtship protocol requires slow, deliberate advancement with explicit ACKs from the receiver.