General Harassment
The Company maintains a strict policy prohibiting its employees from engaging in harassment, defined as conduct that substantially interferes with an employee’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. This includes but is not be limited to threatening or offensive conduct directed toward a person’s sex, race, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, or past, current or future military status.
We will actively enforce our policy against harassment. The policy applies to all conduct by any supervisor, manager, coworker, subordinate, or customer that adversely affects an employee’s work environment. We consider a violation of this policy a serious offense that will lead to disciplinary action, up to and including termination.
Sexual Harassment
Federal and State laws define sexual harassment as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when:
Submission to such conduct is either explicitly or implicitly made a term or condition of employment;
Submission or rejection of such conduct is used as the basis for employment decisions facing such an individual;
Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment.
Specific examples of sexual harassment include but are not limited to the following examples:
Making unwanted written, verbal, physical, and/or visual contact of a sexual nature;
Written examples include suggestive or obscene letters, notes or invitations;
Verbal examples include sexual advances or propositions, derogatory comments, slurs, jokes, or epithets of a sexual nature, verbal commentaries about an individual's body or sexually degrading words used to describe an individual;
Physical examples include assault, sexually suggestive touching or body contact, intentionally impeding or blocking movement, or leering;
Visual examples include sexual gestures or the inappropriate display of sexually explicit objects, pictures, cartoons or posters;
Making reprisals, threats of reprisal, or implied threats of reprisal; for example: implying or withholding support for an appointment, promotion or change in assignment because the employee used the complaint procedure;
Suggesting the preparation of or actually preparing a poor performance review; or suggesting that a performance improvement plan will "fail" or actually failing an employee who is in a performance improvement counseling situation because the employee used the complaint procedure;
Engaging in implicit or explicit coercive sexual behavior that is used to control, influence or affect the career, salary and work or work environment of another employee;
Offering employment benefits, such as promotions, favorable performance evaluations, favorable assigned duties, recommendations, reclassification, etc., in exchange for sexual favors.
Role and Responsibility
Management and supervisory staff are responsible for maintaining a work place free from known unlawful harassment. Employees are responsible for reporting any unlawful harassment to management so that management can fulfill its responsibility. Unlawful harassment of any kind by an employee, supervisor or other representative of the company will not be tolerated.
When an employee is notified that a behavior may be offensive to others or that a complaint has been made, the action in question is to cease until the issue can be reviewed.
Procedure for Filing a Complaint
If you feel you are being harassed or are offended by sexual advances or behavior, you are to notify your supervisor immediately.
