High-Publicity Sexual Harassment Cases - Essay Example

HIGH-PUBLICITY SEXUAL HARASSMENT CASESHigh profile sexual harassment cause serious economic and social challenges to organizations and companies. However, it is devastating that many employers in the United States are reluctant to effectively solve the issue. It is the common feature in the daily bulletins to see various reports on sexual harassment involving respected companies. Unfortunately, sexual pestering occurs even in top levels of business and organizations management. Nonetheless, organizations seem to lack appropriate mechanisms to solve the problem.

This significantly enhances employee chances for sexual harassment at workplace. As a result, multinationals in America face high lawsuits, drop in employee productivity, loss of worker morale, and possible damage to firm's local and international reputation (Harrington, P., & Lonsway, K. A. 2007). These in turn negatively affect the overall economy of the nation. Despite the facts, recent high profile cases show that companies still overlook the risks and prefer taking chances. For instance, In 2008 Christina Rich received $5 million compensation for workplace sexual harassment.

It took only two years and in 2010 David Jones’s CEO faced similar accusations by public relations worker Kristy Fraser-Kirk. Finally, in 2012 Vivienne Dye claims over the same problem against two managers in the banking industry was rejected. The phenomenon reflects a totally unacceptable workplace behavior. It presents the major violation of workers' rights especially the women. In addition, it is against the federal law and human rights. Some of these impacts are long lasting and significantly affect company’s public image.

For example, the case of Dov Charney and the American Apparel Inc. workers in 2014 is fresh on peoples mind. Charney was fired for misuse of company money and posting naked pictures of former female employees who sued him for sexual harassment on the Internet (Ream, A. K. 2014). Considering the occurrences, the acts are inhumane and outdated behaviors that promote moral erosion among the citizensAn analysis of employee life before and after such incidences shows that the actual impact of sexual harassment on the behavior of the workforce is enormous.

Often, the situations are extreme in that, some employees suffer the loss of dignity, humiliation, psychological injury, and damage to professional career and reputation. Unsurprisingly, the victims always have a dilemma to choose between their self-worth and work. In other circumstances, they face the tough decision between their own safety and jobs. For example in 2014, Whitney Wolfe resigned from her job at Tinder Company because the high-level executives at IAC never took her sexual harassment claims seriously (Wortham, J. 2014). Therefore, companies need to act wisely and understand the problem of sexual harassment.

The management should consider the ever-increasing statistics and unreported sexual harassment problems. Further, they should be concerned about the current trends in the law, the legal options for the victims and how to protect all workers regardless of gender and age. In conclusion, high profile sexual harassment in the workplace is a big challenge to businesses and firms operating in America. Therefore, the management of the companies needs to establish efficient procedures to minimize and manage their risk, particularly sexual harassment.

In this regard, it is clear that stopping workplace sexual harassment entails a substantial investment of personnel and time. In the long run, however, these expenses will be compensated by significant savings in and health-care costs and legal fees. Furthermore, firms will profit from improved employee work turnover and productivity (Elkins, T., & Velez-Castrillon, S. 2008). From a business viewpoint, businesses stand to gain more if they adopt straightforward, policies against sexual harassment.

It is the noble investment towards ensuring corporate social responsibility ReferencesHarrington, P., & Lonsway, K. A. (2007). Investigating sexual harassment in law enforcement and nontraditional fields for women. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.Elkins, T., & Velez-Castrillon, S. (2008). Victims' and Observers' Perceptions of Sexual Harassment: Implications for Employers' Legal Risk in North America. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 19(8), 1435-1454.Ream, A. K. (2014).

Lived through this listening to the stories of sexual violence survivors. Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press.Wortham, J. (2014, July 1). Tinder Is Target of Sexual Harassment Lawsuit. The New York Times. Retrieved July 3, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/02/business/media/tinder-is-target-of-sexual-harassment-lawsuit.html