Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

Denise Seetal

Tutor: Dr. Russell Foot

Course: research and statistics

Assignment: Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

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Table Of Contents:

Introduction……………………………………… 1-2

Review of Related Literature……………………….2-11

Methodology………………………………………………12

Analysis of Data Presentation……………………..12-16

Discussions of Findings………………………………16

Recommendations……………………………………..17

Conclusion…………………………………………………17

References…………………………………………………18

Statistics…………………………………………………….19

Introduction:

Years ago there were much more women as house wife’s and their husbands working, but increasing in costs of living and expanding education opportunities more and more women started to move out into the workplace. Unequal payment, opportunities of victimization as a result of women together after a period of time some male and females interact with each other by design.

In society, levels of abuse that have known to be increasing and as a result different organizations the issues of abuse have emerged. Levels of abuse have been increasing (physical and non- physical) in various work organizations, there continues to be a concern with and unethical behavior including sexual harassment. There is a demand of policies and procedures to prevent this form of behavior. And while workers are represented by trade unions the trade unions are not doing enough to highlight the issue. Trinidad and Tobago has legislation in place; in addition Trinidad and Tobago offers some protection through the Equal Opportunity Act’s and the Industrial Court.

There is a need to improve the quality of interpersonal relationship in the workplace. Organizations need to identify their worst problems and best programs and tailor their future efforts accordingly. At the same time, organizations must be careful not to overreact to allegations of harassment or make assumptions about guilt or innocence before investigating the situation. Because it costs taxpayers so much terms of lost time, work disrupted, and legal battles engaged, sexual harassment makes victims of us all.

Sexual harassment is harassment (typically of a woman) in a workplace, or other professional or social situation, involving the making of unwanted sexual advances or obscene remarks; this is a frustrating problem facing employees today. There is often no reasonable rationale for this type of conduct and despite anything we know or do, violent situations happen. The cost to organizations is staggering. It is impossible to overstate the costs of workplace violence, because a single incident can have sweeping repercussion felt by the victims as well as the victim’s family, friends, and co-workers; the loss of productivity and morale that sweeps through the organization after a violent incident and the public relations impact on an employer when news reaches the media.

Sexual harassment affects other issues as well. The adverse impact on organizations and individuals is wide-ranging and can include sick leave, job turnover, and productivity losses, increased security costs, increased workers compensation cost etc. However, caution should be taken when profiting and stereotyping individuals or organization’s since the presence of any of the factors related to these theories does not necessarily indicate a violent act will be carried out.

Review of related literature:

Sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that tends to create a hostile or offensive work environment.

A theory is an attempted explanation of an issue.

Theories of the organization:

Scientific Management theory, also called Taylorism, is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows. It is based on the work of the US engineer Taylor (1909). Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management.

Scientific management has strengths and weakness, firstly the strengths of this theory are –the main advantage is that in theory, efficiency is totally maximized. The smallest amount of time possible is wasted in day to day proceedings and as a whole this raises productivity in the workplace. Higher levels of productivity lead to the business becoming more successful, which in turn leads to increased salaries for workers. Employees are then incentivized to work even harder in order to achieve more bonuses (there is a multiplier effect). Human capital in the company rises and standards of achievement continue to increase. In addition, scientific management provides staff members with a structured plan to follow, which minimizes confusion.

The weakness of scientific management- Although scientific management is perfectly sound in theory, it is not always so useful in reality. This is because it effectiveness relies completely on planning. In the everyday world, things don’t always go according to plan: People call in sick, business partners don’t get back to you on time. Scientific management can’t function with these constant changes, and models based on the theory tend to quickly fall apart.

The Human Relations perspective is a way to manage a corporation where the employees are viewed as social beings with complex needs and desire as opposed to just units of production. It is based on the work of Mayo (1880-1949) in the mid twentieth century. The perspective places an emphasis on the several networks found in a corporation and was gratification not depravation, to provide motivation in the workplace.

Developing a firm safety culture has the single greatest impact on incident reduction of ant process. It is for this single reason that developing these cultures should be top priority for all managers and supervisors. Safety culture consists of shared beliefs, practices and attitudes that exist at an establishment. A company with a firm safety culture typically experiences few at-risk behaviors consequently they also experience low incident rates, low turnover, low self-esteem, high productivity, and better relationships between male and female employee. Employer and employee commitment are hall marks of a true safety culture where safety culture where safety is an integral part of daily operations.