Hands Off, Colleague! What To Do If You Are Experiencing Harassment At Work - Image, Society

In Western legal practice, there is the concept of "harassment" - in a general sense, unwanted behavior that violates the integrity of the person, causing harm and inconvenience - invasion of personal space, jokes and statements that offend the person, harassment, harassment, unwanted physical contact and coercion into sexual relations. There is no separate concept of this kind in the legislation of the Russian Federation. And there is a phenomenon

Dubious advantage

Women, especially young and attractive women (but, to be honest, none of us is insured, unfortunately), often encounter at work what is vaguely called in domestic practice “coercion to engage in sexual acts”, or more directly - with harassment of colleagues or superiors. Moreover, it is no secret that some employers do not hesitate to choose secretaries, administrators or consultants of "model appearance" for perfectly understandable purposes.

For some reason, it is believed that female attractiveness and youth are such a special career advantage, because you can just make eyes at a big boss - and a dusty position is already in your pocket, just sit and get paid. I quite often hear from men that they envy women, because they, men, have to achieve everything with their mind and talents, they need to constantly prove their competence and skills, while girls just need to turn on their charm - and here it is, a brilliant career. Unfortunately, everything is not so simple and rosy.

Dangerous ties

For a young woman looking for a professional career, this situation often becomes critical, and there are several reasons for this.

First, of course, there is nothing good and pleasant about blackmail, psychological pressure and threats. And yes, a boss or a colleague can be three times pleasant and attractive person - but most women would like to maintain normal business relationships in the workplace without translating them into something more, especially under the pressure of "or even I can fire."

Secondly, even if a woman agrees to the proposed conditions, this, as a rule, does not give her either brilliant career prospects or any special inviolable status. On the contrary, if earlier her position in the team was determined by her personal qualities and professional achievements, then in such a situation she instantly turns into “the mistress of such and such …”, even if she is really well educated, executive and competent specialist. Moreover, it is she who will be "under attack" if the "patron" leaves his post.

It may seem that this is all a serious problem only for highly qualified careerists who are scrupulous about their reputation and their brand name. Again, no. Ordinary employees also face similar situations. And in their case, it is usually even worse.

I had to deal with egregious stories, when an unscrupulous employer, intimidating subordinates by saying that he would “dignify” them and they would never find a job for themselves anymore, treated the entire female team. And the service sector? Cleaning employees, waitresses and administrators, saleswomen and consultants - all of them are constantly faced with "courtship" from clients and customers, while they are obliged to be always polite, courteous, because "the client is always right."

If you are experiencing harassment at work, you have 4 options:

• 1. Leave. The most painless and "anemic" option. There is nothing good about working in an unhealthy atmosphere, under pressure, with blackmail. A boss who admits this may well turn out to be not a very pleasant and honest person in other matters, so, if possible, leave. Let's not forget that the rejected are, firstly, persistent, and secondly, vindictive, so again the best option is to play it safe and find another job, or at least move to another department, to another division of the company.
• 2. Step back. It happens that there is no opportunity to leave, the work is necessary and important, and no other prospects are foreseen. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon situation, but it is also not hopeless. The tactics of maximum distancing and transferring all communication into a completely formal channel can be quite effective. Communicate with the "admirer" strictly on work issues, dryly, officially, without friendly conversations about the weather and discussing the latest episode of Game of Thrones.
• 3. Understand. It is very difficult to distance yourself if you are united not just by being in one department, but by a common project, for example. Or your manager has a tendency to long meetings, joint smoke breaks and other not quite formal business in a team - then such behavior can significantly complicate an already difficult situation. Probably, here you will have to pluck up the courage and talk frankly - that the situation clearly looks ambiguous and working together in such conditions is difficult and unpleasant. In such conversations, it is better to refrain from aggression and threats (for example, to notify the team, senior management, wife and children), but you should not behave too softly. Let's not forget that in our domestic culture, women's softness is often perceived as coquetry and an invitation to be persistent.
• 4. Prove and punish. Consider the most negative scenario: the harassed colleague does not perceive any polite requests, no conversations, or other obvious signals, moreover, he threatens to be fired and other troubles, which is punishable by Article 133 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (coercion to conduct of a sexual nature). In this case, you will have to take care of the evidence of obvious pressure and abuse of authority on your own, eyewitness testimonies and records of threats will do. And although according to statistics there are few such cases, and very few reach the court (it is difficult to prove the obvious malicious intent of the harassed boss, and law enforcement officers are biased towards such cases), at least the collected evidence can help to resolve the case peacefully. Especially if there is a senior management above the persistent fan who is not interested in such things happening in the company.

And if this is love?

Before that, we considered cases of obvious malice, when one uses a superior official position, and the other side is clearly against. But after all, an office romance is not necessarily a sad story, many happy marriages have come from relationships that accidentally started in a work routine. How can two people be nice to each other here?

In general, business ethics, which is not yet too deeply rooted in the domestic open spaces, implies that relations with direct subordinates, wards, students, hired employees cannot be tied. Dot. Precisely because no one can be sure that his superior position, power and authority will not affect personal relationships in any way.

Moreover, it is the superior, the senior, endowed with power who should be especially restrained and not allow any ambiguous situations, and if love has accidentally appeared, then make a choice: either business relations are modified (to disperse to different departments, branches, divisions, companies), or, unfortunately, love will wait.