Sexual Harassment: Managing the Critical Business Financial and Human Resources Issues

Sexual harassment claims increasingly expose your organization to significant business, financial, and human resources-related costs and liabilities.  Potential claims now often exceed six-figure numbers. More importantly, sexual harassment increases recruitment and hiring costs increases absenteeism and turnover costs, lowers employee morale, reduces job performance, and results in lost productivity. As a result, if your company has a 6% profit margin, it will have to generate $1,667,000 in new sales to cover the costs of each sexual harassment claim or award of $100,000.  

Thus, while the financial liabilities of sexual harassment can be substantial, they represent only a part of the total cost. To the extent sexual harassment defines how your organization values its employees, your organization increasingly becomes a place to avoid. To the extent your organization accepts sexual harassment as an incidental working condition, you tell employees, applicants, and third parties: we don’t value you. And to the extent your organization does not take immediate action to correct problems, you demonstrate that they should look for employment elsewhere.

• Discuss the impact of sexual harassment within your organization
• Define the definition and types of sexual harassment
• Describe how sexual harassment affects the achievement of organizational goals
• Discuss the financial impact of sexual harassment on your organization’s bottom line
• Discuss the human resources impact on the planning and managing of your workforce
• Play a leadership role in reducing sexual harassment

The marketplace is increasingly asking and evaluating the following critical questions:

• Does the organization avoid the growing legal pitfalls to avoid sexual harassment
• Does the organization properly conduct sexual harassment and workplace investigations
• Does the organization properly weigh and balance privacy issues and concerns
• Are all employees encouraged to report incidents of sexual harassment; are all supervisors and managers required to take action and report incidents

These critical issues and other important elements of an effective sexual harassment program will be discussed.

• HR Professionals
• Internal and external auditors
• Compliance officers
• Risk managers
• C-suite executives
• Middle and online managers

Ronald L. Adler, president of Laurdan Associates Inc. has 42 years of HR consulting experience and has served as a consulting expert on work force, workplace, and HR management issues for The Wall Street Journal, HRMagazine, and other publications and newspapers across the country. Mr. Adler's research findings have been used by the Federal Reserve Board, the EEOC, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), insurers, and international organizations.

Mr. Adler is a frequent lecturer and author on HR management, employment practices, and UI issues. Mr. Adler is the author and editor of the Employment-Labor Law Audit (ELLA), the internationally recognized HR auditing and employment practices liability risk assessment process.

Mr. Adler is an adjunct professor at Villanova University where teaches a graduate level course in HR Auditing. Mr. Adler is also a certified instructor for The Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters (CPCU) Society on employment practices liability and HR auditing issues and has conducted continuing education courses for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) on HR management and HR auditing topics. Additionally Mr. Adler has served as an adjunct instructor at the Baltimore City Community College on workplace diversity and sexual harassment.

Mr. Adler is an appointee to State of Maryland's Unemployment Insurance (UI) Oversight Committee and previously served as an appointee to the State's UI Funding Task Force, the UI Advisory Committee, and the state's Workforce Training Initiative. Mr. Adler has served as a moderator at the State of Maryland's Annual Human Relations Conference and at the state's Annual Small Business Conference.