 July 10, 2017
What is a Complaint? What Leaders Should Know
When I’m asked to sort out a harassment or discrimination situation – either with an investigation or trying to decide what to do after the fact – I frequently find that the client hasn’t really done an investigation previously because the complainant “didn’t want to file a formal complaint.”
This is almost always a major mistake. We don’t want to allow the complainant to determine when we investigate, and the whole distinction between formal and informal complaints needs to vanish.
“…find out what happened and seek to resolve the situation.”
Once you have knowledge of a potentially harassing or discriminatory situation, the organization needs to conduct some kind of investigation, regardless of how you found out about the problem, and without regard to the wishes of the alleged recipient.
I frequently use the analogy of a safety violation, you wouldn’t allow the people breaking the rules, or the person injured in the accident, to determine if you were going to respond. Harassment or discrimination complaints should be dealt with in the same way. You are responsible for the environment, not just the feelings of the complainant. Until you have conducted an investigation, you don’t know if there are other recipients involved or third parties who overheard or saw the inappropriate behavior. The organization’s job is to find out.
What Should You Do?
A complaint is a complaint, whether it is “formal”, “informal”, written or whispered. Sometimes you hear about inappropriate behavior from a “friend” of the alleged recipient during office gossip or in a bar during an after work happy hour. No matter when or how the information is transmitted, if you’re a leader in the organization, you need to respond in the same way: make sure HR knows about the situation and follow their lead. Ideally, they should conduct an investigation unless the alleged behavior is clearly not a violation of law or policy. Don’t be misled by whatever label the complainant uses, nor how you heard about the situation. The organization’s responsibility is the same: find out what happened and seek to resolve the situation.
Even if the complainant urges you to keep their complaint confidential, don’t fall for that trap. If you do, you may find them seeking a higher authority in three months when something worse happens and stating that they told their managers and he or she did nothing. At that point, you’re toast.
 Did You Know
In addition to conducting workshops on harassment, discrimination and diversity, we also train managers and HR employees on how to respond appropriately to these situations.
For more information, call or write us at: 303-216-1020 or Lynne@workplacesthatwork.com
Be sure to read Lynne’s books on sexual harassment and affirmative action.
 
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