TrainingABC Blog

Sexual harassment has once again reared its ugly head in the workplace.  Just today, it has been reported that three subordinate employees have accused a high level political appointee to the U.S. Immigrations and customs enforcement administration of sexual harassment.   This particular case raises an aspect of sexual harassment that is usually overlooked when we think of a perpetrator of harassment - the accused party is a woman and the three subordinate employees are male.

The topic of bullying in school has been widely reported upon in the recent past and a string of tragic events have led to an increased level of awareness on the part of the public as to the effects that bullying can have on the victim who is the target.

While the focus has been on how bullying can be recognized and eliminated amongst school children, the topic of workplace bullying is equally as prevalent and is something that adults often deal with in their daily work lives as well.

HIPAA privacy protection is federal law and sets limits on who can look at our private electronic, oral and written health information.  The security component requires health organizations to protect patient electronic information with a tight level of security.  It is critical that all employees who work with patient records understand HIPAA and how to handle and secure patient medical data.  Comprehensive HIPAA privacy training is required by the law.

Sexual harassment in the workplace continues to be a problem throughout the USA and the world.  Every organization who is serious about prevention needs to provide employee sexual harassment training.  Part of this training is a concise, unambiguous sexual harassment policy statement.  It needs to be direct and leave no doubt that your workplace has no tolerance for harassing behavior.  The following are some tips for writing your organization's policy.

A true story about a national sandwich shop that needs to completely revamp its  customer service training.

The world that we live in has never been more diverse and as a result workplaces have never had more of a need for tolerance, understanding and communication. One of the best ways to address this issue is through diversity awareness training with diversity videos. Video training is one of the most effective tools in adult learning and these training packages include leaders guides, participant materials and in some cases Power Point presentations - every thing you need to facilitate a training session.

Much of the problem with sexual harassment in the workplace lies in the fundamental difference in perceptions that men and women have of appropriate words and behavior. What men think is appropriate is many times completely opposite of what women think is appropriate. Misconceptions and misunderstandings lead to behaviors that are construed as hostile work place harassment. There are several specific behaviors that remain pervasive in the workplace.

There are too many workplaces that are full of negative, fear-based management practices. Managers feel like their employees are "under-achievers" who need a "kick-in-the-butt" in order to achieve. They have low expectations in their employees and therefore their employees live up to these expectations. Dennis Franz who plays Sid in The Sid Story is just this type of manager. He yells and rants and treats his employees like children. He also consistently has the worst production numbers in his company. As the film progresses, Sid find that his management strategy has led to his poor numbers and he changes as a manager and a person.

The basketball player stands at the free throw line and he just can't stop thinking about how he all his shots have been short today and sure enough the ball clanks off the front of the rim. The actor stands on the stage and all he can think about is how he is going to forget his lines, even though he has them completely memorized, and sure enough he can't remember them at the most important moment. The man steps up to the podium to give a speech scared to death that he is going to stutter and sure enough he does. The mind is a powerful thing and seems to be able to affect our actions whether positive or negative. This is widely known as the Pygmalion Effect.

Interviewing and hiring is a dangerous legal area for managers. Even questions asked with the best intentions can be considered illegal and open your company up for lawsuits. It is critical for managers to understand exactly what they can and cannot ask in an interview. Questions that are illegal in nature don't usually provide much valuable information anyway and in general are a waste of time from a hiring perspective. Make sure that you give yourself adequate preparation, so that you don't accidentally ask an illegal question.