The Respectful Workplace Vision
Many people have asked me why I would want to move away from a successful law practice and create The Respectful Workplace. I did so for several reasons but here are my main ones. First, I’ve noticed a spike in the last few years of potential clients calling my office telling me they are working in a “hostile work environment” and want to sue their employer. In listening to their stories it is clear that they are working in a toxic environment and often subjected to rude, inappropriate, disrespectful and sometimes outright abusive treatment. But more times than not the conduct wasn’t direct at them because of their membership in a protected class, i.e. gender, race, religion, national origin, disability, color, sexual orientation. Instead, they just work for what I call an “Equal Opportunity A**hole”. But that’s not illegal and there was nothing I could do to help them. At times their response was heartbreaking as many were suffering from anxiety, depression and a host of many other illness brought on by the stress under which they were working. And they felt trapped.
As if the above wasn’t enough, many of my employer clients expressed their concerns about employee conduct in the workplace that they feared might be putting them at risk of litigation. Again, in most instances the conduct itself was not per se illegal, but it was most certainly inappropriate and was taking a toll on the individuals subjected to the inappropriate and disrespectful conduct. This led to lower employee productivity, increased stress related illnesses and absences, lower morale for employees and of course – lower profits. But in many other cases the conduct was illegal and it ended up costing the company dearly in time away from their business, legal fees and sometimes crippling monetary damage awards.
I decided it wasn’t enough for me to only represent people after they had been subjected to abusive behavior, and it wasn’t enough to defend employers from claims of abuse and harassment. I decided to do something about it to help make this all stop. So, I founded The Respectful Workplace and created training programs that address these issues in the work place and help resolve them by creating workplaces that work for everyone. You know the old saying, “you never see yourself the way others see you”? Well it’s true. And my programs address this very problem so people can recognize the effect their behaviors have on others in order to create a safe and productive workplace for everyone and minimize the risk of litigation for the company.
As an owner of my own firm I can appreciate the difficulty of taking employees, especially managers, away from their work for several hours. However, the time and resources devoted to this training will more than pay for itself in a more productive, positive and profitable workplace.
Given recent media coverage of inappropriate conduct and outright sexual harassment by high-profile individuals it is more important than ever that employers take steps to ensure their employees are well trained on this subject. Also, companies with a solid anti-harassment policy combined with training on the subject and reporting procedure have an added defense to claims of supervisors’ harassment of their subordinates. As a result, the time and money a company spends on this training can not only prevent harassment from happening, but if it does happen, can assist a company in mitigating or sometimes even avoiding liability entirely. Quite simply, it is a layer of protection no company can afford to not have.
