Transcript for:
Lecture on Unlawful Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation

got it okay um all right well i'll just go ahead and get started then um i'll introduce myself my name is kristen anger i'm an attorney at a law firm called summit law group and we do some work with the city and other a lot of actually other public sector employers and the focus of our training this morning is on unlawful discrimination harassment and retaliation i will say that of of all the trainings that i'm asked to do i think this is probably the most important one um i also find that it's an area where i see probably the most misunderstandings and confusion about what the law is i'll be talking to people about for example harassment and somebody will say well that's harassment well not really under the law or the flip side you know that's not harassment actually yeah yeah it is um so that's what we're going to talk about this morning we're going to break it down you know what do these concepts mean how do they crop up in the workplace as you'll see i have a lot of different case studies to throw out for you to think about how things might come up and whether something is or isn't harassment and in terms of kind of what um i want to cover we're going to start with discrimination because there are three different kinds of areas that we're concerned about one is discrimination one is harassment which is a form of discrimination as we'll talk about and then lastly retaliation to make sure people understand you can come forward and express a concern and good faith um and and you're protected against retaliation for having done that um we're also going to talk about what to do if you personally experience any of these things or if you observe this happening to a co-worker you know what are your options for reporting and in that context i'll be referring to the city's policy and i certainly encourage you to take a look at some very comprehensive thorough policies so it's a great resource for folks who have questions about you know how to navigate a situation like this um and then finally we'll touch on kind of what to expect what happens when you make a complaint what is the great unknown you know what to expect um and what the city's obligations and what steps the city would be taking to address the concerns that are raised um there is a chat option so i i'm not necessarily going to see questions as they come in but we've got folks who are monitoring the chat so if i say something that's confusing or that you know you have a question about please don't hesitate to you know input in the chat and marianne or somebody else can interrupt me and i can address that or we can look at questions at the end if folks have questions at the end with whatever time is left um so thank you for joining me and i i hope this will be informational and helpful to you as you know thinking through some of these issues um so we'll start with kind of a little pop quiz and we'll just rattle these off pretty quickly just to get us thinking about some of these concepts first one here it's against the law true or false it's against the law to discriminate in employment based on sexual orientation if we're all here i'd say raise your hand raise your hand if this is true i'll just take your you know just make an assumption that you're kind of raising your hand or nodding um if you agree with that statement and this one is true um maybe surprisingly there had been some ambiguity under federal law whether it was even illegal to discriminate on sexual orientation in the last several years that has clearly been recognized to be unlawful it's been long time unlawful under washington law so when we talk about sex discrimination that encompasses discrimination based on sexual orientation gender expression gender identity those are all what we call protected classes under the law and i'll come back to that concept of protected class um how about the next one sam believes he was passed over for a promotion because he's a husky and the manager prefers employees who are cougars is this unlawful discrimination so here i'm hoping people are shaking their heads as i just mentioned there's this concept of protected class so these are categories or classifications that and are entitled to protection under state and federal law sports affiliations are not a protected class you know the huskies among us may feel like we should be in a protected class but we're not um so you know what team you affiliate with those other kinds of categories are not going to be protected when we're talking about protecting classes these are things like gender race religion disability etc and again i'll circle back to what those actually are third one if you engage in harassment you can be sued individually and held personally liable for damages true way to be that is absolutely true it's actually not true under federal law but in washington state our state law says if an individual engages in harassing behavior that's discriminatory they can be sued personally and again going back to you know what i started with there's a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about what harassment even is and yet this is an area where people can be held personally liable and sued so i again commend you for participating in this kind of training to understand what it is what it isn't especially given the personal liabilities that could arise okay a few more the law prohibits harassment by coworkers harassment by third party such as a constituent or a vendor is beyond the scope of harassment laws true that one's false um it used to be true the courts would kind of say you know an employer really can only manage its own employees it's not responsible for some person off the street interacting with an employee but the law has evolved and courts kind of recognize that you know the employer has an obligation to manage the workplace and you know as employees we may be out in the community interacting with people and if we're being harassed on the basis of sex or race etc that is something that our employer has an obligation to do so it is something that can be reported up through the harassment policy obviously it's going to be harder for an employer to address you know some random constituent or you know vendor potentially you can't discipline or terminate them but there are things that an employer yes um okay next one if you didn't mean to offend a co-worker you didn't engage in harassment what do you think this is the biggest fattest false on this little quiz um there are a lot of what i call well-intentioned harassers they're folks who you know maybe they're trying to be funny maybe they're romantically interested in a co-worker which is all good and well until it becomes creepy and then we have to start talking about harassment so intent really doesn't matter the what matters is the effect of someone's behavior on a co-worker um so we'll definitely circle back to that one because it's one of the key issues in this area last one here if your supervisor calls you stupid in front of others and constantly belittles you in other ways that's unlawful harassment what do you think on that is that true that one is a bit of a trick question um i i would say if i just read that sentence as it is with you know no other facts i would say that's probably false i think that's probably what we put in the category of bullying behavior it's it's mean it's insensitive but harassment again is a form of discrimination so if the bullying behavior also is discriminatory and implicates someone's gender race religion etc then it becomes unlawful harassment hopefully you know an employer is going to address this kind of bullying behavior regardless but again it takes on this illegal quality when it also involves discriminatory behavior so just something to keep in mind there um remember i said we're going to start with discrimination so this don't want to get too deep in the legal weeds but i also want to convey that we're not talking about this just because you know the city of renton thinks this is an appropriate thing to talk about there are a lot of laws that obligate employers to ensure there's no discrimination in the workplace and part of that is making sure that employees who interact with each other and with third parties understand what those laws prohibit so we've got a whole laundry list here of federal laws title vii is the maiden federal law that prohibits discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race religion gender creed of national origin then we get into other laws the americans with disabilities act prohibits disability discrimination age discrimination has its own statute pregnancy discrimination has its own statute and even genetic information is protected under federal law and then we have this whole state overlay our washington law against discrimination proudly goes beyond federal law in certain areas as i mentioned has long prohibited gender discrimination or sexual orientation discrimination including gender expression gender identity marital status is another protected class under washington law whether you're married or not and the basic rule under all of these is employers should not treat employees differently based on protected class when it comes to anything you know anything related to employment so hiring firing promotions compensation disciplinary decisions discharge decisions so that's kind of the golden rule under the discrimination laws when we're talking about discrimination we're usually focused on employer actions employer decisions as we'll talk about harassment can be between employees who don't necessarily have authority to make you know employment decisions but certainly have the ability to affect the work environment of a co-worker um so i've mentioned a couple times protected class or oh sure question is our question all right kristen um yeah we have a question um asking if uh billing belittling someone based on their cognitive abilities either explicit or perceived is that unlawful um so i would it would depend i think if the cognitive abilities actually rose to the level of a mental health disability like a learning disability um could certainly be something that is recognized as a disability and the americans with disabilities act prohibits discrimination and as a corollary prohibits harassment based on a disability so there would be i think a fact question about you know i mean if i just call a co-worker you know you're stupid um and they're not they don't actually have some kind of learning disability or cognitive disability that that rises to the level of a disability which is not a high bar um frankly you know we can talk a little bit more about that um it technically could not be it could be an insult an insult it could be demeaning but if the person is not does not have a disability it may not be unlawful that doesn't mean it's okay though i just want to be clear that i'm not saying that that is okay there are almost certainly personnel policies that would prevent you know belittling somebody based on or calling them um names because of perceived cognitive limitations so hopefully that answers that question it's hard when we're not here and i can see people like still looking you know confused or or um like oh okay thank you so let me know if there are further questions around that um when we talk about protected classes so we've got um you know this list of different protected classes under state and federal law and because that term becomes very important in this area i just want to give you some background around what are the protected classes again race and color and that includes traits associated with race so we've got washington law was relatively uh amended relatively recently to include these traits associated with um with race including hair texture hair styles that may be associated with certain races national origin sex obviously note that age discrimination has to be somebody who's age 40 plus technically the yemens are not in a protected class 40 doesn't even sound very old to me anymore but that's the cutoff for age discrimination claims i mentioned religion disability marital status so these are kind of all of the different ways in which discrimination might crop up in the workplace these are protected classes on which decisions should not be made when we talk about discrimination again i don't want to get too deep in legal legalese here but there are different kinds of discrimination that might come up in the workplace one is just the most traditional or common kind which is disparate treatments that's where an employer is making decisions in the workplace that take into account protected class when it should not you know maybe disciplining people differently based on race or religion or gender et cetera disparate impact is going to be a more subtle kind of discrimination it's where the the rule or explanation is facially you know neutral but it has a disproportionate negative impact on a certain group i'll give you a silly example if we're hiring a receptionist for my firm and we put the job posting out and we say you have to be six two or taller okay height isn't a protected class but there's no rationale for a height requirement for a receptionist right and that's going to disproportionately screen out women there aren't that many women who would meet that certain ethnic groups may be disproportionately affected and the critical thing is there's no rationale for that job requirement so that's kind of a silly example but that's an example of disparate impact and then look at the last one here harassment again it's a form of discrimination um i talked to people and you know people use the word harassment or hostile work environment oftentimes to refer to anything unpleasant in the workplace and as you can see it's actually a form of discrimination it's not just kind of anything that that's unpleasant my kids are older now but they you know used to be kind of in the back seat poking each other and fighting and you know my daughter would say he's harassing me mom like no siblings are not a protected class no you know harassment is a different thing so we're going to talk a little bit about that and break that down a little bit um i did want to spend one extra minute on disability discrimination because i just got done saying the golden rule for discrimination is you know treat people consistently without regard to protected status disability is one area where someone might be treated differently because of a disability and that's because employers have an obligation to provide reasonable accommodation to an individual with a disability they have to be qualified to do their job with or without reasonable accommodation so if you or someone who has a diagnosed health condition that impacts your ability to do your job there's an opportunity to come forward and say i need an accommodation and in these cases the employers would reach out to the employee's provider health care provider to understand you know what is the disability and what does this employee need there may be some back and forth about what accommodations we can provide that wouldn't create an undue hardship for the organization or impact other people you know create undue hardships throughout the organization and then there may be an accommodation provided sometimes there can't be an accommodation provided if an employee says you know i need basically an assistant to do my job okay yeah there are going to be limitations on that but it this is an opportunity to come forward if you have a health condition that in fact impacts your ability to do your job by the same token you know you may see coworkers who sometimes it's like well they're getting special treatment well it may be that they're receiving reasonable accommodation because they have a health condition and the employer can't exactly go around and say oh they have an accommodation so there may be you know it's not something you may still want to ask your supervisor what's going on you may or may not be able to get the details about what's happening but i just wanted to kind of flag this because again i just said you gotta treat everybody the same for uh for discrimination purposes there are a couple of other accommodation arenas in the disability area just a flag for you one is for pregnant employees pregnant employees under state law are entitled to accommodation things like you know additional breaks lifting restrictions you know changes to the food no food policy those kinds of things that a pregnant employee may need another form of accommodation is a combination of sincerely held religious beliefs we see this maybe with an employee who can't work on a certain day of the week for religious reasons or on certain days of the year maybe needing to wear some kind of head covering or facial hair consistent with their religious beliefs those are forms of potential religious accommodation okay so i want to kind of the bulk of our training here this morning is going to be on unlawful harassment because again i think this is the area where people um it's most impacted by employees interacting with each other or third parties interacting with employees and again i think there are a lot of misunderstandings around what it is and what it isn't um even within the category of unlawful harassment there are different kinds of harassment as you can see from this slide the first one is quid pro quo harassment that's um as you can see latin this for that that is the most kind of blatant um kind of harassment it's what you know you see if you saw the movie bombshell involving the fox news network where you know male executives are basically rewarding female executives for engaging in or female employees for engaging in sexual behavior or punishing those who don't so it's like this use of power it's almost always in a sexual context and basically the gist of it is somebody's being rewarded or punished for their willingness to engage in unwelcome sexual activity that's pretty blatant pretty black and white you kind of know it when you see it what i think is much more challenging to identify is this other kind of harassment which is hostile work environment and that's basically where the workplace is so permeated by offensive and discriminatory behavior that at some point the law says this crosses the line and it becomes illegal so we're gonna break this one down a little bit more um just to kind of understand what what courts look for and and you know how you can help recognize uh this behavior in the workplace um i wanna direct your attention i think on the link to um the zoom meeting for this training the city policy that addresses harassment um it was attached and i'm sure it's available to you um through you know your internet or whatever you have for city policy availability but i have the policy site here it's as i mentioned a very comprehensive policy has lots of detailed examples about things that may constitute harassment although we're going to spend a few minutes on that as well um who can commit harassment again back to the quid pro quo because it's that power thing you know somebody's being rewarded or punished in their job um it's always almost always going to have to be a supervisory kind of position but in contrast the hostile work environment can come from anywhere it could come from a supervisor but it could come from a peer it could even come from a subordinate it could come from a person off the street the ups delivery person who's coming into the office and saying offensive discriminatory things um so really kind of any any direction anybody that we interact with in carrying out our work could be the source or create a hostile work environment so any you know unpleasant behaviors like that could be addressed through the city's anti-harassment policy as i mentioned i want to break down this hostile work environment concept a little bit more so people understand what i'm talking about when i talk about this discriminatory and offensive you know work environment that that that may exist so the elements the kind of requirements that we look at in this area are is the behavior unwelcome which sounds really straightforward but i will tell you that is where most of the disputes and misunderstandings arise um second it's based on a pretty prohibited subject matter so protected class again is it you know on the basis of sex race religion disability etc um the third one at what point is it bad enough that the law says this is illegal um and this is tricky i mean i i um i think the golden rule here is to say let's nip things in the bud at the lowest possible level before we have to decide how bad is it um it's not like you get three dirty jokes a year and you know those are those are free passes and then anything over that it's not that simple but a court's going to look at how frequently things are happening how long has this been happening etc and we'll come back to that a little bit and then the last one is really important kind of why we're talking about this as well is the employer knew or reasonably should have known that the behavior was happening and failed to take corrective action so the law basically recognizes that employees may engage with each other and say things to each other that are inappropriate and the employer's not responsible for that behavior unless it learned about it and didn't do something about it so that's why we want to make sure that employees understand the ability to come report things because that's what triggers and allows the employee employer to investigate and address behaviors in the workplace so helping people identify what is harassment and then knowing what options they have to report it and and get it corrected um okay so let's circle back to remember that the four elements at the top of the list was the unwelcomeness and i have this picture of this gal holding the sign here you know i am offended to underscore that we don't usually behave this way we don't usually you know be this clear that something has offended us there might be all kinds of ways in which you know behavior is unwelcome um but we don't say i'm offended we you know roll our eyes or walk away or shake our head or you know cross our arms um to non-verbally indicate the behavior is unwelcome and on the flip side the people engaging in the behavior sometimes don't receive those signals and they don't understand or don't accept that their behavior is unwelcome and so that's where we get into you know certainly some issues with harassment i always talk about my dad or throw my dad under the bus when i talk about this element because he's one of those guys still is that has the big email distribution list with jokes so he blasts out all these jokes and some of them are just dumb dad jokes but some of them are you know politically incorrect or otherwise inappropriate you know i mean it's to the point where i close my office door before i open an email from dad because i don't know what's going to pop up on my screen and i would look at his emails and i'd go oh dad you're sending these to people you work with you shouldn't do that um thankfully he's retired now but he he would say well you know they would tell me if they didn't like this joke or that it was offensive and i'm like they don't have to dad you supervise that person i mean maybe they don't feel comfortable telling their manager that they were offended you know they're just gonna keep their head down until it builds to the point and i just had you know nightmares of people printing out all of bob's jokes and someday you know somebody was going to make this so and my point here is he lived in this land of unless somebody tells me otherwise my behavior must be welcome and i'm here to tell you that is a risky place to live that you can be held accountable that courts will say you should have known this behavior was unwelcome somebody shouldn't have had to tell you that so we certainly want to empower employees to say hey i'm i find this unwelcome um but on the flip side somebody doesn't necessarily owe you that um and you take chances um with you know your own career by assuming that your behavior must be welcome because no one has told you otherwise um better to just avoid you know the discriminatory or offensive behavior in the first place than to make assumptions um but it's welcome okay i have a few case studies sprinkled here um and i'll just throw them out just to kind of think get you thinking about how some of these issues might crop up um this one's about tom tom's just a really popular guy at work people tend to go to him with problems because he's warm and caring he'll sometimes put his arm around somebody at work and he even might give somebody a hug if they're down or stressed all good so far right maybe recently tom has been studying massage therapy and is offering to demonstrate his massage techniques on co-workers so what do you think any concerns about harassment here i'm hoping you'll at least say yeah maybe um some of us you know grew up in very touchy feely families and are okay with touching other people have kind of the space bubble and get very uncomfortable with touching especially if it's not welcome touching um not all touching is sexual or because of sex but it can certainly be perceived that way so i i would you know and i think what pushes me over the edge in this fact pattern is the massage you know that's a kind of more intimate kind of touching and you know i would want to be very very clear that this behavior is welcome to the people that tom is touching um so you know if you're a touchy person making sure that your behavior is always welcome on the flip side if if you're working with a tom and tom's making you uncomfortable saying hey tom not a hugger fist bump or you know tap elbows at these days that's perfectly fine too touching is just fraught with the potential for misperceptions and i mean there are court cases where the courts are analyzing hugs you know is it a breast to chest hug is it a side hug you know is it sexual in nature um so just at least having this on your radar um is something that i would certainly recommend you do um remember that third element at what point does it does the behavior cross this red and white line um and again we don't want to get close to that line if there's an inappropriate joke or comment in the workplace we address it nip it in the bud you know it stops we don't have to debate you know was it ongoing how frequently was it happening you know how long has this been happening note on this element the behavior to be unlawful can be either severe or pervasive so one severe incident like a sexual groping or something could be sufficient to establish liability if it's less severe then it has to be pervasive so you know happening with some frequency ongoing but again don't live in the land of oh i get three dirty jokes a year you know those are my free ones and anything beyond that might be problematic because at some point cumulatively a court could absolutely say that the conduct crossed the line so again nip these behaviors in the butt at the lowest level um okay another case study for you all um this one's about joseph joseph's been on light duty for several months due to his back condition he's also missing work due to flare-ups with the medical condition other people that he works with are getting increasingly frustrated they're having to work more overtime they're having to do the more burdensome or onerous tasks assigned to this group they're starting to refer to joseph as a slacker and a faker under their breath someone left an anonymous note on his car even telling him to quit or get back to work um joseph's also saying that his co-workers are giving him dirty looks and are really cur when they're speaking to him so what do you think is this is this harassment potentially are people beat here so this is based on a real court case and it was against fred meyer and it the court recognized that this is potentially a form of disability harassment joseph had a diagnosed medical condition that was qualified as a disability the employer was providing reasonable accommodation it was frustrating to other people they were being impacted but i think the key here is that you know the employees should not engage in what i call self-help by picking on joseph if joseph's accommodation is is creating you know impacts unreasonable impacts on others they can communicate to a supervisor or manager and say you know this is not fair i'm going to start looking for work elsewhere if i have to work every overtime shift you know this isn't fair and so that may go to whether the accommodation is reasonable but picking on the employee who's getting this accommodation is not appropriate and could be construed as harassment so just making sure that you're using the appropriate channels and you know as i mentioned a bit earlier the employees in this case didn't necessarily understand oh this is he's getting a reasonable accommodation they felt like it was you know just a special treatment um and and the reality is an employer can't always say oh here's joseph's medical record right just to show you and confirm he's not a faker he's got a doctor's note so there were you know some liberties taken with by the employees and the court said yes this is a form of potential disability harassment that could be inappropriate and lawful under state law not to beat the dead horse here this is not a picture of my dad or my brother but you know i just want to kind of underscore this this notion that intent is not a requirement you know you could have this guy what i'm just trying to be funny you know the fact that somebody isn't meaning to harass somebody or offend them even um is not relevant what is relevant again is the effect of their behavior so kind of the good intentions um don't protect somebody from um being being charged with harassment um also being trying to be more sensitive to the perceptions of other people who are in different protected groups than you like you know different aged you know bands or generations um different you know i may say something and not realize that in somebody else's culture that's a really inappropriate or a derogatory term um or you know as a woman it's like you may not realize that but as a woman i find that really offensive um so kind of just like oh i'm you know being sensitive to the fact that just because i didn't intend it to be offensive doesn't matter i need to be respe respectful and if somebody says this is an offensive term or behavior that i try to understand that and modify my behavior accordingly and again silence does not not equal welcomeness so making sure we're not assuming that behaviors must be okay because nobody's told us otherwise okay another case study this one um is a frequent flyer fact pattern so we've got this one involves russell who recently let's say transferred into serena's work group serena seems to have developed a crush on him she's regularly stopping by his desk to chat and sometimes makes comments that make russell uncomfortable for example when russell mentioned that that he got so sweaty running an errand that he felt like he needed to change his shirt serena commented that she would be happy to help him with that and gave him a meaningful look um russell responded you know that's gross uh when russell mentioned that his girlfriend was out of town serena jokingly suggested that he could come by that evening or she could come by that evening to keep him company russell rolled his eyes and told her to knock it off what do you think is serena harassing russell here i hope you're starting to think that we we are certainly headed in that direction right i mean russell is trying to send signals that serena's behavior is unwelcome it doesn't seem like serena is accepting those signals so she's continuing to try to flirt with him and at some point it's going to start you know what russell may start dreading coming to work or you know trying to avoid and it's it's affecting his work environment um this is one of those classic examples where you know russell might not say this is unwelcome or i am offended but he is trying to convey the unwelcomeness um and serena needs to pay attention to that and modify her behavior so this you know there aren't laws against co-workers dating there may be policies against it um but this is an example of where you know behavior that seems to just be interpersonal starts to become the employer's issue when when it has the potential to um rise to the level of harassment um so i you know i don't think we're there yet based on these two little factoids that i shared in this case study but you know certainly if this continues we we could certainly be talking about harassment this case studies based on an investigation involving another client where it was a very similar fact pattern where it was a female employee in that situation where her supervisor kept making these kind of sexual innuendos and kind of invading her personal space and just making her uncomfortable and she was gonna complain about it but but then the city scheduled harassment training so she's like yes you know we're gonna sit through this and he'll get it you know he's gonna understand now that his behavior is inappropriate well they're sitting in this training and the the male supervisor literally texts the female subordinate employee during the training um like this is lame with an eggplant emoji which i have learned in recent years ray has sexual connotations and she's like oh my gosh so then you know she ended up having to make a complaint there was an investigation there were consequences all because the supervisor just and his explanation i thought we were flirting i thought she was interested um and you know i think there was an added overlay there because there was a supervisor subordinate relationship so she was extra anxious about saying hey knock it off um but he was refusing to read the signs that that she was attempting to send to say this is unwelcome which again creates risk um there are some different behaviors that tend to crop up in harassment cases and and i just wanted to kind of run through them quickly some of the case studies are conveying this but i think it helps to kind of have a sense of what they are um again harassment can come from any direction and it can involve and think things like you know constant comments about somebody's personal parents or calling them hey sexy or hey handsome or things like that nicknames can have racial connotations can have sexist connotations it could be you know the honey sweetie deer um it could be the sexy it could be you know some kind of racial connotation inappropriate in the workplace um stereotypes you know this is women's work or um other kinds of you know mocking somebody based on you know a protected status i had an investigation once where i um it was it involved a police department and these detectives were dealing with a a confidential informant who as it was described to me was very flamboyantly gay um very gregarious and and flamboyant in his behaviors and so these detectives would come back to the police station and imitate their informant and so they would talk to each other with a lisp they would walk in a very effeminate way and other employees would see this behavior and it seemed like mocking and derogatory so it was kind of an example of kind of those stereotypes in the workplace um could could give rise to an unlawful hostile work environment for those employees who and the behavior note that the behavior wasn't directed at these other employees it was just these detectives thinking they were being funny but it affected the work environment in a really offensive way um we talked about touching dating can be if one person's not interested and the other person isn't one person is interested in the other person isn't off-duty conduct that spills back into the workplace can unfortunately be a form of harassment where there's some kind of off-duty incident and now super uncomfortable intentions or glaring or staring kind of in the workplace could could potentially implicate harassment laws cartoons posters pictures t-shirts that all of that were well past the day hopefully where people have playboy or playgirl center folds up in their cubicle but you know we still occasionally see offensive kind of posters or you know humor jokes things like that that touch on protected class and are derogatory jokes again very frequent player there are people who cannot get through a conversation um without some kind of sexual innuendo and i have this kind of parenthetical here even if you've heard it on tv my kids again early 20s they can't get through a conversation without they love the office the show the office you know everything that you know every conversation we have i hear that's what she said which is right it's funny i i love the show the office um but that is a sexual connotation and if it's happening constantly at work you know that could be an example of behaviors that are inappropriate um so you know that's one one small slice but if it's happening on a recurring basis that could be problematic um slurs epithets staring leering kind of even not touching but invading somebody's personal space constantly could be you know and a lot of times there are multiple behaviors it's not just one thing right it's kind of an accumulation of behaviors sexually graphic comments again even if they're not directed at someone maybe it's two employees talking about their own sexual activities but other people are present and it's their workplace too email and internet is the mother lode it's funny because you know somebody would never stand up in a lunch room and tell an inappropriate dirty joke but it's really easy to hit forward and you know back to my dad it's almost worse because you just you know that stuff never goes away we used to say it's on backup tapes now it's in the cloud and it it can accumulate and be problematic texting same thing microaggressions is kind of this new concept in the harassment arena and it refers to well i have a slide on it um kind of everyday little dings and digs at people um whether it's intentional or not intentional that communicate a derogatory message to someone based on their protected cloud class um if you do kind of buzzfeed microaggressions if you google that um you'll get there are different almost slide shows that pop up and it's you know i look through one of them and you know there's some kind of compelling examples like a person kind of of darker skin holding up a sign that says you know so what are you these are just all comments that have been made to that person that kind of marginalized them right you know like and maybe it's coming from a place of curiosity but what are you you know sounds derogatory and you could see kind of feels offensive there's an asian person who was asked you know what do you people eat at thanksgiving and you know i you know i'm an american why can't i have thanksgiving the same as you those kinds of responses you don't speak like a black person you all look alike it's kind of compelling when you see these people holding these signs of comments that have been said to them um and i saw a recent um it was a youtube video it's it's very compelling in this whole micro aggression concept and it it basically analogizes a cartoon but it analogizes microaggressions to mosquito bites and it's kind of this like each one is not a very significant pain but when it's kind of you're getting mosquito bites daily or several a day it starts to add up um and it's kind of that concept that you know so just making sure that you know insensitive comments um are minimized and um that we pay attention to those kinds of behaviors um and not making people feel uncomfortable at work um some misperceptions whether this is maybe you know employees who are attending this training or maybe other employees that you're interacting with and when i do investigations and which i sometimes do in the harassment arena this is what i kind of oftentimes hear well no one's told me this is kristin's dad no one's told me that my behavior is unwelcome so it must be okay right well i didn't intend to harass that person it doesn't matter um my jokes weren't directed at so and so so why is so-and-so claiming you know i wasn't even talking to so and so well it's so-and-so's workplace too right so that is not a defense um so this these are just kind of common misperceptions to work through um and understand that they're not they're not necessarily okay my co-worker always laughs at my jokes so he or she can't claim harassment certainly if somebody's laughing that suggests that the behavior is welcome but again maybe the person is laughing because they're new and they don't want to rock the boat or maybe you're their supervisor or they feel they have you have some authority over them so they haha go along with it but it's still hurtful and and begins to accumulate um but last one you know well she or he likes attention because look at the way they dress so they are clearly want me to comment on their body um no that's not going to be an excuse or a defense so those are just kind of common misperceptions that crop up and this slide is really um you know tell that joke to the judge to underscore that you know what a lot of times what might feel funny and okay in a in the nature in the context of a particular work group or work environment well that's just the way we roll but when we talk about these harassment cases you know you're sitting in front of a jury or you're being deposed and the joke or the comment can sound very different in that context and that is the context in which it would be judged um so so being mindful there's kind of an old adage those of you we all you know you live in the public records environment so you kind of think of you know anything you generate emails at work is potentially a public record and could be on the front page of the paper kind of having that same mentality that you know what what we say in this context could be pulled out and and you know looked at in a very different light in a very different context okay another case study this one's about samuel samuel's worked for the city for about 10 years recently disclosed that they're transgender and will begin using the first name samantha and they them pronouns since then tony a co-worker has continued to use um in communicating with samantha he him his pronouns um and has declared that tony will compromise on the name by calling samantha sam um tony asserts that you know you can't teach an old dog new tricks and tony can't make these adjustments given that he worked for with samuel for a decade what do you think is this harassment yes um you know it is true that you know that maybe this is difficult transition for tony and um and he it's gonna be hard to to remember to use the correct pronouns or the preferred pronouns that that sam samantha would now ask that others use that there are going to be some some inadvertent lapses from time to time but refusing to use the pronouns that a coworker wants to use or refusing to use the name that the co-worker wants someone to use yes could be a form of harassment and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation sexual identity gender expression so this is a new and emerging form of harassment but but we all need to get with the program and recognize that people that is a protected class and protected status and be respectful of the pronouns and names that people want to use and feel comfortable using so holler if there are questions about that um another case study here again another very common one so we've got an employee and a particu set of employees in a particular group that you know our tight-knit group for example and they engage in joking and banter that some would call politically incorrect so they're joking and teasing about joe's age miguel's ethnicity amira's religion and gender pat's sexual orientation everyone's laughing everyone's participating so let's say you're their supervisor is their behavior unlawful so this one is kind of a trick question you know i just told you a bit ago that to be unlawful hostile work environment harassment needs to be unwelcome um so if we could put each of these employees under a lie detector or truth serum and confirm that absolutely this behavior is welcome um there's a decent argument that it's not unlawful right but here's the reality the reality is one or more of these people made joke and banter to get along with others but really are offended or maybe they it is welcome at the time but maybe then miguel and joe have a falling out and miguel puts a different spin on these interactions and now joe is going to be potentially losing his job because he made offensive ethnic comments about miguel that miguel says were unwelcome that's an option or maybe you've got other people coming in to the finance department and engaging in and being subjected to some of these comments and they're not okay with it so for many reasons it is unacceptable to engage in this kind of you know the the teasing and joking in a derogatory manner about age ethnicity an employer can't assume that this is all welcome and employees can't assume that other people just because they're not openly objecting find this behavior welcome so that's just kind of again to underscore that the risk of making assumptions um i sometimes after a training like this people go oh my gosh i'm just not gonna talk to anybody because anything you know might be construed as harassment and that's not what i want to leave you with um we all you know this graphic i'm offended by this potato we probably all know people who wake up every day um and look for things to be offended by right you know that's offensive like why what um there is under the law a reasonable reasonable person standard so would a reasonable person be offended by you know whatever is being described um and if a reasonable person wouldn't be offended then it arguably is not unlawful harassment with the caveat that right just because i think it's reasonable doesn't doesn't mean it is if maybe i'm talking to somebody and in their culture it is offensive right what a reasonable person of that ethnic group find the behavior um unreasonable um i did a training one time where i was um i got a hand went up and a woman asked you know well i said i work with a co-worker who bicycles to work and every morning he comes in and he's like super tight black lycra bike shorts and he walks right by my uh my desk and they're very revealing and you know could i complain about this i mean i just it's really offensive to me that he walks into the office in in this attire um you know and i kind of said i don't think a reasonable person would be offended you know if he's stopping and doing a little show for you next your desk of course but we're all going to see people go to the gym or riding their bikes home or at the grocery store in exercise wear and that's not necessarily um you know reasonable person wouldn't consider that as offensive sexually harassing behavior as long as he's going in changing putting on appropriate attire and then you know getting to work um so that's kind of an example but you know there are times when you you might be offended it's okay to come forward and express concern about it that's part of what happens when an employer does an investigation is looks at the behavior you know would a reasonable person be offended by this so there are you know judgments that need to be made but you can still come forward and say this i find this upsetting and and that's part of what gets reviewed um rudeness and insensitivity again are not necessarily unlawful harassment that might be kind of the bullying behavior that we talked about um before um i also want to note that you may not know you know you know you're being treated in an offensive way but you don't know whether it's because of your gender race religion etc you just know that somebody's picking on you i do again as i said investigations where that's part of what i look at so sometimes you don't know whether the behavior involves a discriminatory element until you start you know understanding what's going on so you can sometimes come forward and say this is happening to me i think it could be harassment and then that's part of you know what gets investigated and assessed as part of that process work-related criticism you know sometimes people say i was put on a performance improvement plan or my i was counseled for this this is harassment it may feel unpleasant but if it's legitimate performance feedback that's not going to be harassment because you know yes it might be unwelcome but it's not discriminatory so that's not necessarily going to amount to harassment so those are just some kind of limitations or caveats around this whole concept of harassment um this slide really reflects kind of this movement i think that's happening with the whole you know the meat hashtag me too movement um kind of getting from that me too to like not here and the idea is you know it used to be kind of isolating the victims of harassment um you know where they were kind of felt alone to educating people about what's appropriate in the workplace and saying you know whether it's happening to me or not it's not okay with me um so having people who may observe behaviors that are offensive in the workplace saying it's not happening happening to me but it's not okay with me either and kind of coming forward and saying this happened so you know you upstand right on behalf of of co-workers so if you're someone who is not the receiving end of harassing behavior but you see a co-worker being subjected to it you know there are things that we can do we can respectfully intervene in a situation hey you know i'm sure you didn't mean what you know i'm not sure what your intent was but that comment you know could could have racial connotations or something where you're kind of respectfully intervening in the moment or just pulling somebody out of a situation you know hey can i talk to you i have a client or customer issue or something like that um so kind of moving the person out to just disrupt the situation um you could talk to either party later hey you know i was there that was not an appropriate comment you know i i trust that you won't do that again um or going to human resources or talking to the person who was on the receiving end hey i'll go to human resources with you if you want to report this i saw it too you know not okay with me so again just kind of being supportive and taking ownership of our workplace and making sure these behaviors are not happening um we're going to talk in just a moment about retaliation but as the slide conveys you know somebody who comes forward with with a complaint about harassment is protected from retaliation and that's whether they're coming forward on behalf of themselves or a co-worker so complaining on behalf of a co-worker could also be a form of protected activity that prevents retaliation a couple more case studies here um as we kind of work through and towards the closure of the materials this one is about a bunch of co-workers who were in the lunchroom and they're talking politics a recipe for disaster in the last several years anyway but people are talking about politics and the conversation between these two individuals turned to immigration so these two employees voiced their strong opposition to illegal immigration and then made disparaging comments about mexicans and other ethnic groups juan is from mexico he's standing in the lunchroom not involved in the conversation but he's maybe getting something out of the refrigerator and he was deeply offended by these comments so couple of questions around this fact pattern a could this be construed as harassment i hope you say yes um certainly you know one-off conversation may not be enough to um amount to unlawful harassment it doesn't cross that red and white line if it happened just once but if this is a recurring issue or there have been other you know comments made towards or in the vicinity of juan that are offensive and discriminatory um yeah this could certainly contribute to a hostile work environment here's what i you know would typically i would have hands raised but i have first amendment rights you know i have free speech rights and immigration is a political issue and i can state my you know my position on that true um i don't disagree with that but i think where this fact pattern goes um makes a left turn is you know stating your opposition to illegal immigration is one thing um to then turn and begin making disparaging comments about particular ethnic groups that's where it became a problem right so that's where kind of the right to free speech butts heads with the right to be free from discrimination at work um and like the courts are going to draw the line you know here yeah you can talk about a political issue but not disparage a particular ethnic group um and and that's you know how that's going to crop up from time to time how about this other um question does it matter whether the co-workers knew juan is from mexico or you know what i would hear if i was investigating this potentially is we weren't even talking to juan i didn't even know he came into the lunchroom let alone that he was from mexico i wasn't harassing juan that's what i will often hear um as as i think we've talked about that doesn't matter it's juan's work environment he should be able to go to the lunchroom and not be subjected to ethnic slurs right by co-workers it doesn't matter whether they know you know he he is from mexico or was even present it is the work environment um so you know there are just rules about appropriate respectful behavior within the workplace um and again it doesn't matter whether you're picking on somebody specifically or even knew um that they were in the protected class and i think you know i would just take a moment here to kind of underscore that because you can look around a workplace and not know what religious beliefs people have you don't necessarily know their sexual orientation um so there may be in protected classes you don't know whether they have a particular hidden disability um and and to make inappropriate comments and offensive discriminatory comments because well we're assuming people aren't in that protected class so it's safe is problematic and potentially risky um okay this this case study is based on a relatively recent court case it involves change the fact pattern a little bit but the city operates a public swimming pool and employs chad as a lifeguard the city has received a number of complaints that chad has made several women uncomfortable by ogling their bodies and commenting on their bodies and offering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation so these are female people females who are coming onto city property they're not employees of the city can they sue for sexual harassment what do you think so again this is based on a relatively recent washington case and the court said absolutely um our discrimination laws prohibit discrimination not only in employment but also in places of public accommodation businesses that are open to the public you know public property that is open to the public people should be able to go there without being subjected to sexual racial harassment other kinds of unlawful harassment um and i think what i really want to underscore here look at that last bullet item need not demonstrate that behavior was severe or pervasive so in the employment context you have to show that it's severe pervasive in this context where people are coming into onto city property they don't have to show it was pervasive you know it arguably you know this is a new case we haven't seen a lot of developments and further interpretations of it but you know a one-off offensive comment could support a harassment claim um so we need to be very careful you not only need to behave you know appropriately in interacting with coworkers but you know constituents people who you're interacting with and carrying out your job so you know a city employee who's engaging in kind of very heavy flirting and kind of making females uncomfortable or males uncomfortable you know and doing their job that can be a problem this case was actually against group health where a male was coming in for his medical appointments and a female group health employee was making really appropriate inappropriate sexual comments about his body her sex life um and he sued for sexual harassment the court recognized that's an actionable claim um so again pretty much anybody that you're interacting with at work or in connection with your job could could potentially argue harassment okay this case study helps us transition to our next area of focus here um it involves dawn and dawn's a manager jasmine's provides administrative support for dawn and his work group um jasmine complains to hr that some of dawn's behaviors make her uncomfortable so she's asserting that dawn invades her personal space and stares at her chest um hr investigates and while don is ultimately not found to have violated the harassment policy he is counseled to avoid these behaviors that jasmine complained of afterwards don is really cool to jasmine he speaks only to her if necessary he excludes her from work-related emails and meetings so what do you all think is this behavior unlawful raise your hand if you think it's unlawful so i hope you're saying yes raised hand yay crystal thank you um yes this is as you know kind of the third topic that we're going to talk about this is a form of unlawful retaliation jasmine had the right to come forward she made a good faith complaint that she felt like she was being subjected to harassment and even though so this is based loosely on an investigation i did um and i concluded it wasn't sexual harassment and here's why i talked to everybody in this department and everybody was like oh don is a close talker he gets right in your personal space and so men said this women said this i you know thought of like the seinfeld episode where you had the you know it was all about the close talker and everybody recognized this it wasn't because of gender or sex it was not because of protected class but it was an annoying and uncomfortable personal habit so don was you know it wasn't sexual harassment but the an added fact here was dawn was super tall he was like six five and the female complainant was very petite maybe five feet tall and so when he would get really close to her she felt like he was looking down her top and it just made her uncomfortable for a lot of reasons so she would wear turtlenecks in july and she would always have a desk in between you know her and her supervisor but it wasn't at the end of the day i didn't think sexual harassment but she certainly had a right to come forward and um express concern about it now the fact that dawn afterwards is cool to jasmine that's not necessarily unlawful retaliation what what became unlawful retaliation is excluding her from emails excluding her from meetings now he's interfering with her ability to be successful in her job and that's where it became a problem i think it's natural after an investigation i i can tell you from what i heard don was completely mortified um somehow in his life no one had told him that being a close talker is really annoying and offensive so he was like completely mortified that everybody had this perception and talked about this behind his back um and he didn't realize that he was doing it um so i think it was probably natural that don would be a little bit embarrassed and kind of distant um going forward at least for a bit until he kind of regrouped um but but actually cutting somebody out of meetings and emails that's problematic that is a form of unlawful retaliation um so when we talk about retaliation in a legal way basically what we're looking for is the employee engages in some kind of protected conduct and here it was a good faith complaint by jasmine that she was being subjected to sexual harassment as i mentioned it could be another employee coming forward on jasmine's behalf right to express concern about harassing behavior so that's protected activity then the employee would show something bad happened to me i was disciplined i was discharged something punitive happened to me and then there's a causal connection between the two i suffered this adverse action because i complained of protected activity um and so that in a nutshell is is unlawful retaliation under the law um when we talk about protected activity our focus today is reporting discrimination and harassment note that it's in good faith if i completely and maliciously make up a lie about somebody that's not protected activity but but if i come forward in good faith and say i think this is harassment even if again my complaint isn't substantiated um it's still protected activity for me to come forward so the last thing i want people to take away from this is i have to be right and my complaint has to be provable to be protected that's not the way the law works if i'm coming forward in good faith that's protected activity cooperating an investigation testifying in a legal proceeding other kinds of things can also be protected you know reporting a safety violation kind of a whistleblower activity taking fmla or protected leave as a protected activity reporting as i mentioned improper government activity kind of whistleblower behaviors or filing a union agreements um i i also want to kind of underscore just because somebody is engaged in protected activity doesn't mean they're immune from discipline or discharge let's say you know while i was on fmla my employer discovered that i've embezzled 20 grand obviously i'm going to lose my job and the fact that i was on fmla does not protect me from the consequences of my you know highly inappropriate behavior but if the adverse action is be is because of the protected activity that's where we're focusing on unlawful retaliation um so kind of as we wrap up here i i want to kind of turn to or the last segment here about kind of reporting and how to report and what to expect um again i don't want people to stop short of making coming forward with a concern because i'm not sure um that that you know the what i'm complaining about meets those standards that kristen talked about all of those elements um you don't need to worry about whether it would be harassment in a legal sense or a legal under the law whether this would be um harassment or whether there were witnesses um it's still protected for you to come forward and have it reviewed um who should make a complaint certainly anybody who's been actually subjected to discrimination harassment or retaliation or somebody who has witnessed these behaviors who must make a complaint any supervisor really who becomes aware of harassing behavior should be reporting that to to the city to human resources i'm going to kind of reference again your city policy here this is policy 340-02 um i encourage you after this kind of training to take a look at it to know what your reporting options look like you know it identifies your reporting pass kind of a manager supervisor kind of somebody outside your bargaining unit if you're represented you can go to a department administrator or hr supervisor should absolutely be alerting human resources so an appropriate investigation can be undertaken timing is really important these things need to be reported as soon as possible so there are some timelines established in the city's policy my personal plea since i do these investigations from time to time please be specific who what where when you know are there witnesses do you have emails or texts as much concrete information as you can provide is really helpful it can be challenging to investigate when the allegations are really vague and uncertain as to time or who might have who else might have heard or been there so the more details you can provide the the more efficient and effective the investigation will be and then obviously cooperating with an investigation you know making yourself available to to the investigator etc um this is again just an elaboration of what i said sometimes i'll get complaints that you know she makes inappropriate comments okay what specifically give me quotes what exactly was said who said it you know when was this was anybody else there that kind of stuff and then sometimes you know sometimes it's obvious why you're offended other times like help me understand why this was offensive you know to you um again identifying other witnesses documents etc and then you know if you're aware maybe you know this happened to you and you want to report it but you're you know you've heard or you've talked to other people who had similar experiences that can be very helpful in an investigation context as well um a few other um expectations um when you when you do make a complaint sometimes people will complain but say i want to report this but i don't want you to do anything about it employer you can't you can't do anything with this information i insist that you don't do anything that request can't necessarily be respected an employer may have a legal obligation to take action to investigate and take corrective action maybe um the employee that you're complaining about has done this before right so this is a recurring kind of behavior that needs to be addressed maybe there are other complaints maybe the behavior is so serious that the employer again has a legal obligation to take action there might be times when you know you come forward and say hey so-and-so made this offensive joke and i told her that it was offensive and she apologized and i think we're good i don't want anything i just think you should know that that happened you know maybe in that case an employer might say okay we'll i'll monitor this situation and make sure there are no further instances might check back with you but in many situations if somebody's coming forward with a harassment complaint it's going to trigger some obligation on the employer's part to act um when we when i use the term investigation that can mean all kinds of things sometimes with a complex investigation we bring in an outside party to interview all the witnesses sometimes it's something that could be done by a supervisor or human resources so it really depends on the nature of the complaint and the complexity of what's being alleged so there's no one-size-fits-all when i use the term investigation another kind of just making sure you're aware sometimes employees will come forward and say this has to be kept confidential no one else can know that i've made this complaint well this certainly isn't the kind of thing that we're going to call a staff to you know a department meeting and say kristin has reported harassment um it's not going to be addressed like that but if if we're going to investigate we may need to talk to some people and we certainly may need to ask the person who's being accused what happened right so an absolute confidentiality you know that can't leave the room may not be realistic but it is going to be handled with sensitivity and discretion um sometimes after the investigation is concluded there will be some kind of corrective action if the if the complaint is substantiated maybe there's discipline and or training and or other steps to make sure that the behavior that the the complainant isn't subjected to that behavior any further the remedial action really depends on the nature of what was substantiated um if the if the complaint can't be substantiated maybe we still think training or something is is appropriate um but but certainly if the if the complaint is substantiated and the behavior serious there may be other consequences um with the caveat that the employer's obligation is to take corrective action intended to stop the behavior sometimes when behavior was unintentional something a lower level response might be appropriate or sufficient to make that happen sometimes with very intentional kind of harassment termination needs to happen so it really depends on kind of the nature and and sometimes a complainant will say the only appropriate outcome is termination of this person um and that may not be something that's feasible you know under just cause standards or or the like so at the end of the day the employer's obligation is to take enough action to make sure that the behavior stops um that's the the obligation legally um and then of course you know at the conclusion of an investigation the employer is going to communicate no retaliation um should occur based on good faith cooperation with the investigation so after an investigation if there are adverse actions being taken that is something that then could be reported as well um so i i'm going to kind of remind folks that if you have questions or want to kind of discuss things we can certainly you know i i will defer to marianne and others about unmuting and letting people ask questions verbally or input them in the chat i'm just winding down here with kind of some step back um guidance around the harassment arena things just to kind of after a training like this think about how you interact with co-workers are there things that you know i do that i may not realize that could be microaggressions or offensive to my co-workers or inappropriate jokes that i'm assuming um are okay with them so kind of some some bullet items here you know self-monitoring behavior um i i will tell you i come from you know you heard about my dad i come from a really inappropriate family my brother is a gynecologist and he has no filter he says things and my kids go right that's my family environment but i know that when i come to work i don't repeat that stuff um it's not appropriate in the workplace so so the behavior is the reality is you know whether it's you know the frat house analogy or just you know kind of whatever behaviors you might engage in with your friends or your family outside of work does not always translate to an appropriate and respectful work environment they are just necessarily different um doing a little self reflection what do i tease co-workers about you know do i tease them about their age their ethnicity their you know whatever the gray hair um those little comments could be potentially microaggressions i mean you hear um age age um kind of banter around you know there was an example of somebody you know going into a presentation instead of using three by five cards to kind of for notes um this woman used five by seven and people were joking about oh your eyes you know the old lady has to use the five by seven cards you know that's an example of that's not appropriate um so just thinking about um you know language that we use or what kinds of humor that we tease people about and i'm not trying to suck all the good fun and humor out of a workplace at all that's the last thing i want to do but if we can find things to tease and banter and joke about that don't touch on protected class that's better the husky cougar dynamic the you know whatever it is that might you know be funny and still show that you care and like your co-workers but but that don't amount to dings based on protect a class um recognizing that co-workers may interpret their your behavior differently because they're of a different generation that they're in a different ethnic group or cultural have a different cultural background those kinds of things and just being open to learning you know when somebody says hey in my culture or as a woman or as a man or as a gay person that's that term is kind of okay i'm adjusting my behavior i'm understanding your perspective on that by the same token if maybe you have a co-worker who uses a term or makes a comment that they may not realize is offensive to you educating them if you feel comfortable doing so to say hey you know give them the benefit of the doubt and a little grace you know i you may not realize it but that turn okay and then if they persist then yeah we may have you know an issue um that that needs to be addressed under harassment policy but kind of helping people kind of recognize and being more sensitive to others i think can be really really helpful um with with one more caveat i never want people to feel like i have to go confront my co-worker i can only go to hr if i've tried and failed um you can always go to human resources or use the reporting mechanisms through your policy but sometimes if you feel comfortable doing that that can kind of generate um you know a good dialogue between co-workers and and fix the problem before it has to become you know a potential policy violation last couple of points here again is kind of the social stuff that might happen you know people go out for a drink a beer after work and something inappropriate happens and it spills back into the workplace or you go to a conference or a training off-site and people are hanging out where co-workers are hanging out that can be considered as the work environment so the rules are not off i've heard in i think three different investigations i did this is an hr free zone um you know we're we're away at a retreat there's no such thing when you're involved in work-related activities all of it could be construed as the workplace and then lastly again that point that no one deserves harassment nobody invites it based on the way they dress or you know the way they conduct themselves if you make that assumption that's going to be a problem just similarly you know making an assumption that my behavior must be welcome because no one told me otherwise so those were kind of the the main thoughts that i wanted to leave you all with um i will just stop talking i know i talk very fast and rarely take breath so um i'll stop talking for a moment and see if there are any questions i don't think there are in the chat um okay the policies in the chat so any questions you all can enter or if somebody wants to raise their hand and unmute i'm happy to answer any questions um so is there a training for how to properly respond to harassment well boy i hope that part of what what we covered in this training is responding to harassment right i mean you can tell a co-worker your behavior is unwelcome to me um you know the sign this is unwelcome um but you know clearly communicate it and put them on notice and then if the behavior continues the policy gives you these reporting mechanisms if you're not comfortable telling a co-worker that their behavior is making you uncomfortable and you feel like it's harassment then you can go straight to the reporting options under the policy um um so beyond that i'll i'll defer to the city in terms of what specific um context there may be around that like for supervisors obviously i think supervisors have a heightened obligation to respond to harassment allegations because that puts the employer on notice that there is some inappropriate behavior that triggers the employer's obligation to respond and responding can include a lot of things like investigating and taking corrective action all right anything else all right well um i'm gonna stop talking now i don't know if anybody from the city wants to weigh in with closure but um thank you all for for joining us this morning thank you so much kristen um i am going to drop in the chat here a certificate of attendance so if everyone who's here could fill this out and return it to marianne and hr we'll also send out an email later with the certificate in case you can't grab it right now we'll get it out to you later okay let me stop the recording