Checklists for Employers

Checklist One: Leadership and Accountability

The first step for creating a holistic harassment prevention program is for the leadership of an organization to establish a culture of respect in which harassment is not tolerated. Check the box if the leadership of your organization has taken the following steps:

▢ Leadership has allocated sufficient resources for a harassment prevention effort

▢ Leadership has allocated sufficient staff time for a harassment prevention effort

▢ Leadership has assessed harassment risk factors and has taken steps to minimize those risks

Based on the commitment of leadership, check the box if your organization has the following components in place:

▢ A harassment prevention policy that is easy-to-understand and that is regularly communicated to all employees

▢ A harassment reporting system that employees know about and is fully resourced and which accepts reports of harassment experienced and harassment observed

▢ Imposition of discipline that is prompt, consistent, and proportionate to the severity of the harassment, if harassment is determined to have occurred

▢ Accountability for mid-level managers and front-line supervisors to prevent and/or respond to workplace harassment

▢ Regularcompliance trainings for all employees so they can recognize prohibited forms of conduct and know how to use the reporting system

▢ Regularcompliance trainings for mid-level managers and front-line supervisors so they know how to prevent and/or respond to workplace harassment

Bonus points if you can check these boxes:

▢ The organization conducts climate surveys on a regular basis to assess the extent to which harassment is experienced as a problem in the workplace

▢ The organization has implemented metrics for harassment response and prevention in supervisory employees' performance reviews

▢ The organization conducts workplace civility training and bystander intervention training

▢ The organization has partnered with researchers to evaluate the organization's holistic workplace harassment prevention effort

A reminder that this checklist is meant to be a useful tool in thinking about and taking steps to prevent harassment in the workplace, and responding to harassment when it occurs. It is not meant to convey legal advice or to set forth legal requirements relating to harassment. Checking all of the boxes does not necessarily mean an employer is in legal compliance; conversely, the failure to check any particular box does not mean an employer is not in compliance.