Sexual harassment in the workplace can make a person feel like they have to leave their job and potentially stagnate their professional growth. All too often, sexual harassment claims get dismissed by companies because they strongly feel like the whole case is based on hearsay. In other words, the company perceives it as one person’s verbal testimony against the other’s.
Especially when the harasser is a manager or executive, a lower-level employee may not receive the serious consideration they deserve when they come forward with harassment claims. Documenting each individual act of harassment and all of your communication with your employer during a sexual harassment scenario can protect you.
Careful record-keeping can substantiate your claims
If you claim that your direct supervisor routinely made suggestive comments to you or ask you for sexual favors during your quarterly reviews, you will need detailed information to back up those claims. Keeping a written record of every inappropriate statement, unwanted touch or questionable sexual reference can help you show a pattern of behavior and provide evidence of ongoing harassment.
Keeping copies of each attempt at communication with human resources or management as you ask for them to address the situation, as well as their responses to you, can help prove that you complied with company policy and the law in your attempts to have your employer handle the problem.
Unfortunately, if your employer chooses to side with the harasser instead of you, you could have to keep working in a hostile work environment or worse or they terminate you because you brought a reasonable complaint against someone else. In either of those scenarios, the documentation of the harassment itself and the companies in action despite your request for assistance will bolster your claim if you have to go to court in order to receive justice following workplace sexual harassment.