Telephone, moral or sexual harassment can also take place in your company. No one is safe from this scourge. This kind of behavior should never be taken lightly and must be detected thanks to your attention and that of your teams and to apprehend them upstream.  Read how to protect ourself against the sexual harassment at workplace in this article;

The harassment?

According to the public service, three types of harassment are retained and make it possible to understand the mechanisms used by the harassers.

Telephone against harassment

Repeated and malicious phone calls are considered harassment. Repeatedly sending malicious text messages or e-mails is considered telephone harassment or ringing your phone without speaking to you with the sole purpose of causing noise disturbance.

Moral harassment is manifested by repeated actions: derogatory remarks, intimidation, insults, etc. These actions have the effect of significantly degrading the working conditions of the victim who risks:

• violate their rights and dignity,
• or impair his physical or mental health,
• or jeopardize his professional future.

These acts are prohibited, even in the absence of a hierarchical link with the perpetrator. Sexual harassment is characterized by the fact of imposing on a person,  in a repeated manner,  remarks or behaviors with a sexual connotation which: undermine his dignity because of their degrading or humiliating nature,

Read these 5 tips for your protection

1. Communicate about harassment with teams

Communication on the subject of harassment is essential between the teams. Make sure that the employees communicate with each other to express the problems that become necessary and allow if necessary to pierce the abscess around a misunderstanding or a proven fact of harassment. Establish dialogue with its teams and intervene so that everyone knows what harassment is and its consequences on the person, but also the penal consequences they may incur if they turn out to be the perpetrator of the harassment. Communicating allows employees to understand the irreversible consequences of harassment and to be able to help a colleague who is a victim of this phenomenon. Join sexual harassment training course by clicking on this highlighted link.

2. Identify problems by observation 

To prevent harassment, it is important to identify possible problems in the working relationship. To do this, observing the attitude of employees makes it possible to prevent a delicate situation in terms of telephone, moral or sexual harassment. As an employer, a vision external to the teams gives you a different approach to the situation and allows you to play the role of mediator and warn about your inflexibility in the face of inappropriate behavior. A dialogue with an employee with an inappropriate or aggressive attitude towards another employee requires tackling the problem tactfully to make him understand what harassment can bring him. 

3. Avoid by your attitude any tolerance for questionable jokes and touching 

To avoid any inappropriate situation from a sexual harassment point of view, questionable jokes or touching should never be tolerated in your company. Do not hesitate to take back your employees who are a little too joking and tactile. A regular warning about these practices can prevent this type of behavior and reassure people who may be the object of such behavior. 

4. Implement preventive measures 

Raising employee awareness of workplace harassment remains important, and this information helps detect strange behavior. The rules of procedure must refer to the prohibition of harassment. To complete this, on-site preventive visuals that notify all employees provide a definition for better prevention of harassment. Occupational medicine can, in some cases, alert companies and their employees to further raise awareness, following previous cases of harassment. Inform employees of criminal law-related statutory documents, curb moral harassment, and work with staff representatives. If present, the Health, Safety, and Working Conditions Committee (CHSCT) is part of its job. Employer.

5. Prevent stress to avoid aggression 

In terms of moral harassment, one of the key points is often linked to aggressiveness. This is very often caused by stress, it must be anticipated within the company. Plan to debrief with your teams to allow them to eliminate their own stress. Managers must be listened to because they are the first in contact with employees. Aggression due to stress can turn into moral harassment. It requires clear measures to de-stress the employee, using breaks, events but above all to understand the climate of the company and all the services. Not trusting appearances is part of the leader’s skills.