Remember the male harassment victim who was told he should walk around singing “I’m too sexy for my shirt”? The case has finally been resolved — and you can probably guess how it turned out for the employer.
Some background: A female employee of a wheelchair assistance service provider in Las Vegas began sending sexually suggestive notes to a male colleague a year after his wife died.
The male victim complained to management, but nothing was done – no company policy relating to the issue was in place.
The female worker then began relentlessly pursuing the male worker, including sending him a nude photo and making lewd gestures.
Eventually, the male worker complained to four separate managers, none of whom opted to help him.
The male employee, formerly a top performer, began to perform poorly, and eventually resigned.
Then he sued, claiming he was subjected to a sexually hostile work environment.
The company decided it’d be best to settle – to the tune of $75,000.
But there was another small issue: The firm failed to agree to taking any measures to prevent sexual harassment in the future.
A federal judge finally had to order the company, Prospect Airport Services, Inc., to take those steps, which include:
- developing policies and procedures for handling reports of sexual harassment
- developing an effective investigation process for all complaints of sexual harassment
- appropriately disciplining management and HR staff for failure to comply with such procedures, and
- providing annual sexual harassment training to all supervisory employees.