Reporting Workplace Harassment to the HR Department in California

Answer:

Last week I settled a case in which one of the issues was the fact that my client had complained about sexual harassment to their supervisor. Apparently, the supervisor didn’t do anything with that information. In this case, Human Resources was back in Iowa and my employee and her supervisor worked out here in southern California. Throughout the litigation, the defendant accused my client of not contacting Human Resources. Why didn’t she contact Human Resources? The reality was the client was never informed how to contact Human Resources. They never posted a phone number, never posted anybody at Human Resources as to who they can contact, and they didn’t provide any process as to how to properly report something to Human Resources.

After a lot of argument, I think the employer realized that, under California law, it’s the employer’s obligation to take affirmative steps to prevent harassment. It’s the employer’s obligation to make sure that they have policies and procedures in place to make sure that, if there’s a complaint of harassment, something is done. When she complained to her supervisor about the harassment, it was our position that the supervisor had an affirmative obligation to contact Human Resources to get the ball rolling regarding her complaints.

To the question of, does my supervisor have an obligation to report my sexual harassment? I think the answer is yes. They actually do have an obligation to prevent the harassment from continuing. If you have a question about whether or not you should tell your supervisor that you’re being sexually harassed and what impact that might have on your employment, or what reaction happened when you went to HR to complain about the sexual harassment, feel free to give us a call here at the firm. I’m happy to answer any questions that you might have.