Compliance Perspective – Sexual Harassment:
The Compliance Officer should review the facility’s policies and procedures with the Administrator and the Compliance Committee to ensure they have in place the steps needed to prevent sexual harassment from occurring in their facility and to ensure that immediate and appropriate action is taken in response to an employee’s complaint. Employees must be educated in very clear terms that sexual harassment will not be tolerated, and employees must also be trained about what constitutes sexual harassment and how to make a complaint including the use of the facility’s Hot Line. All employees must be educated about the illegality of taking any retaliation measures against an employee for filing, testifying or participating in any way in a discrimination investigation. The Compliance Officer should periodically survey employees to determine if there are any unreported incidents of sexual harassment occurring, and if any are reported through the survey, an investigation will be instigated.
After first attempting to reach a voluntary settlement through its conciliation process, the EEOC has sued a Colorado senior care company for violating federal law by allowing two of its employees to be sexually harassed by a client’s son while working in the client’s home.
The company provides in-home care giving services. The suit charges that the women were subjected to pervasive unwelcome conduct, including unwelcome touching. The client’s son also allegedly exposed himself to the women and touched them with his genitals. When the women brought this behavior to the attention of the company, it failed to investigate their allegations and continued to assign them to the client, creating a hostile work environment for them.
After the women complained about the harassment, the company retaliated against them by cutting their assigned work hours which led to a significant loss of income. The company finally fired one of the women and forced the other woman to quit by reassigning her to work at the same home where she was again harassed by the clients’ son.
The lawsuit asks the court to order the company to provide the affected women with appropriate relief, including back wages, compensatory and punitive damages, and a permanent injunction enjoining the company form engaging in any further gender-discriminatory practices or retaliation. The EEOC also asks the court to institute and carry out policies and practices that eradicate and prevent sexual harassment and retaliation in the workplace.
