The Employer Handbook

“There’s Little Evidence Sexual Harassment Trainings Work,” wrote Madison Pauly in this article at Mother Jones.

Ms. Pauly notes that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received over 162,000 EEOC Charges of Discrimination between 2010 and 2015. Plus, she cites a University of Oregon associate law professor’s study, which concluded that trainings are “too often ‘a hollow exercise in corporate compliance’ that tend to emphasize that harassment is bad for workplace productivity while glossing over the point that harassment is a kind of discrimination—which she believes could serve a ‘moral anchor’ to make the trainings more convincing.”

Is Ms. Pauly’s article on point? Maybe. Actually, before I commit, let me google “moral anchor.”

Ah, nuts to that. Here’s my hot take on five more reasons why your workplace anti-harassment training is ineffective. Continue reading

Suppose that your former employee files a Charge of Discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After an investigation, the EEOC concludes that there is probable cause that your company violated one or more of the federal anti-discrimination laws that the agency is tasked with enforcing.

So, your employee decides to the file a lawsuit in federal court. And, those claims get all the way to a jury.

Can the employee-plaintiff introduce evidence that the EEOC already determined that the employer-defendant probably discriminated against the plaintiff?

Continue reading