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Are Managers doing enough to protect their staff against sexual harassment?

Are Managers doing enough to protect their staff against sexual harassment?
Author: Sarah-Jane Buttigieg
3 Commentries
Sexual Harassment of Hotel Employees by Customers

Are Managers doing enough to protect their staff against sexual harassment?

Sarah-Jane Buttigieg, from the University of Lincoln
Student number: 08102907

Keywords: Sexual harassment, inferior, complaints


Abstract
This paper will discuss the varying reason why staff suffer from sexual harassment, what is being done to protect them, and the many definitions.

According to the European Commission, sexual harassment is described as conduct of a sexual nature, and the unwanted physical, and verbal behaviour towards a member of staff (Oliveira et al, 2013.

It can be said that women are the main victims of sexual harassment from customers; Aslan states et al (2012) that as both men and women work within the same occupations, yet women are sexualised in a way that men are not. This may also be a result of customers seeing the staff as being inferior to them, as well as an easy target. Aslan et al (2012: p682) also states that the employees are placed in “an inferior position in order to satisfy the customer’s wishes”. Guerrier et al (2000) states “women and only women must maintain an attractive, appealing appearance, smile, make customers feel good and respond to sexual advances and innuendos”.

According to Perry et al (2009) the management of sexual harassment can have great implications for the hotel industry. This can include cost implications, a high turnover of staff and legal implications for the company. Stating that a good approach in dealing with sexual harassment is to provide staff with the correct training, which he describes as becoming a legal requirement of employers.

There are many challenges for managers when dealing with complaints, many complaints go unreported as staff members are from poorer backgrounds and are worried about jeopardising their jobs. Managers also tend to turn a blind eye, as they do not want to lose their customers’ loyalty (Oliveira et al, 2013). There have been incidents where staff members have reported sexual harassment from customers, but as a result have lost their jobs for reporting the issue. Often with reasons given for their dismissal being something along the lines of ‘they work too slow’, so their employers are therefore finding and using other excuses to terminate their employment. As of April 2008, managers are liable to protect their staff from sexual harassment from customers, as employees are already protected from sexual harassment from colleagues, and if they fail to do so they can face legal repercussions.
Within the work of Guerrier et al (2000) a case study was presented in which the example of a black female receptionist within a five star hotel experienced racist behaviour from a customer on more than one occasion. Due to this situation a new check-in procedure was put into place, whereby a manager had to be present in reception to greet this particular customer. Although like in many incidents managers failed to deal with the matter and the incident does not get the acknowledgement that is required.

This paper had the intention to conduct primary research; this had the purpose of trying to find out what the hotels had in place to protect their staff. After contacting hotels to enquire as to what their procedures and policies are to protect their staff, the hotels were unwilling to discuss this, which can make these hotels look like they don’t actually know them. Although one hotel claimed that they follow the policies that are set by ACAS, but when researching ACAS, it was found that they are only there to facilitate the hotel in making their policies and procedures and in actual fact do not set the policies themselves, in which they are also there to guide managers in how they can handle and deal with the situations as and when they arise.

In conclusion, it can be said that there is a lot more that managers can do to protect their staff against sexual harassment from customers, as it seems that managers are more worried about keeping their customers happy and loyal than protecting their staff. Many incidents of sexual harassment go unreported as many staff members come from poorer backgrounds, in which customers feel that the staff members are inferior to themselves and they therefore can harass the staff. Sexual harassment in the hotel industry causes hotels to experience a high turnover of staff, as well as managers finding any excuse to dismiss a member of staff that reports any sexual harassment. Due to the hotels being uncooperative the researcher was unable to obtain firsthand information about the policies that are in place. To the researcher this does not give the hotels a positive image, as this makes them look like they are hiding the information, or in actual fact they don’t know the policies that they have in place. Recommendations would include making sure hotels treat staff with respect, therefore taking any complaint made seriously. Staff should not be made to feel as though they have done something wrong in reporting the incident; the welfare of the staff should take priority over the loyalty of the customers to the hotel.

References:
Guerrier, Y. Adib, A (2000) No, we don’t provide that service: The Harassment of hotel employees by customers. Work, Employment & Society. Vol: 14 (4) PP 689-705

Oliveira, I. Ambrosio, V (2013) Sexual Harassment in the hotel housekeeping department. International Journal of Management Cases. Vol: 15 (4) PP 180-192

Aslan, A. Kozak, M (2012) Customer Deviance in Resort Hotels: The Case of Turkey. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management. Vol: 21 PP 679-701
Are Managers doing enough to protect their staff against sexual harassment? The commentary
Author: Jenni Luotonen
This paper takes a different point of view on the same issue that my paper talks about. It is very interesting, shows substantial research on the subject and has feasible recommendations on how to tackle the sexual harassment from managerial positions. The author has attempted to defined sexual harassment but the definition of sexual harassment is a contentious issue and cannot be easily defined. It also gives some reasoning on why women, the most common victims of these incidents, and experience sexual harassment.

There are problems when it comes to fighting against sexual harassment in the workplaces. As the author has said the victims of sexual harassment are reluctant to report sexual harassment incidents due to fear of losing their jobs. If the perpetrator is of a higher position, in many cases the most common harassers are the managers (Giuffre & Williams, 1994); it is very unlikely that the employees will report these incidents. Managers also have to make sure that a good working atmosphere prevails in the workplaces; if accusations of peer workers are brought out, it might create friction between the employees and hence affect their contribution to work. Research also shows that some employees enjoy sexual interactions at work (Giuffre & Williams, 1994: 383) and this might affect some employees and managers judgements on whether to report it or not.

However, there is no evidence of discussion of the role of observers. If the author was to expand the research, she could include how observers intervene in these incidents, and whether they could help in the process of reporting these sexual harassment incidents.

This paper shows that sexual harassment is a widespread problem and that it has not been tackled as well as it should have. The fact that hotels are not willing to talk about their policies, or even worse do not know about them, shows that great actions need to be implemented by managers in order to fight against sexual harassment in workplaces.

References

Giuffre, P. and Williams, C.L. (1994) Boundary Lines: Labelling Sexual Harassment in Restaurants. Gender & Society, Vol. 8, Issue 3, p378-401.
Are Managers doing enough to protect their staff against sexual harassment?
Author: Evija Skudra
I have chosen to comment on this paper, because I found interesting to correlate the issues of sexual harassment against staff members. As I working in busy restaurant, where I deal with customers and staff members, it is interesting to know little bit more about sexual harassment and express my own opinion.

The author of this paper starts with a good introduction of why women who are the main victims of sexual harassment more than men in their occupations. This paper shows what the challenges are for managers who are dealing with all complaints from their staff members and how they are treating their staff members according to the sexual harassment. It is interesting reading the research, because there are many different aspects how managers should and shouldn't treat their staff members. Especially, it is very shocking when staff members are complaining about sexual harassment and not been threaten in right way.

From my own experience, I think managers should threat their staff members in right way to do everything for them so they can feel comfortable at the workplace. As nowadays, “sexual harassment is a serious problem in the world of work” (Equality human rights, 2006). For example, if there is a situation that staff member is been threaten with sexual harassment from the staff member, the member who been threaten should write complain to managers to deal with it. If the manager cannot deal with the problem, they need send that person who was threatening staff member with sexual harassment for investigation and if then it’s not been possible to deal with the problem they need fired the member.

Another example, if there is a customer coming in to the restaurant with a bad mood and in some kind of way badly threaten one of the staff members, if the staff member has not feel comfortable they have rights to call the manager. From the manager’s side, he has to deal with the customer, giving two ways: call the police, if there is bad situation and ban that customer to come to the restaurant for threatening their staff members not in the right way. The second way would be polite and tell to the staff member who was treated with sexual harassment an apology and if the staff member accepts an apology the problem would be solved and the staff member would be comfortable to work in that place.

Overall, I agree with the author on the terms of the role of manager that is not been enough to protect staff members from sexual harassment and that there is a lot more that managers can do to protect their staff against sexual harassment either from customers or staff members.


References:

Equality Human Rights (2006) "Sexual harassment" [online] Available from: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/employers/sexual_harassment_managers_questions.pdf (Accessed on: 10.05.2014)
Commentary: Are managers doing enough to protect their staff against sexual harassment?
Author: Emmi Korvenpaa
The author has successfully illustrated how wide problem sexual harassment is in tourism workplaces and she has also provided some decent recommendations for preventing sexual harassment on employees in the future. Consequently, as the author has indicated, it is important to consider which actions should be taken from the managerial side because managers are responsible for providing a safe working environment for their employees and they are also in charge of coping with any incidents of offensive or sexual nature. Even though the author has given some noteworthy recommendations for preventing incidents of sexual harassment, such as training managers to commit on preventive actions and encourage them to take complaints seriously, there are still other methods that managers should take into consideration. In addition, managers are responsible for providing their employees a detailed handbook, which includes information on a company’s sexual harassment policy. The purpose of the handbook is to strengthen employees’ conception of their legal rights and advice them how to avoid and cope with sexual harassment. Hence, it is essential that employees are aware of their rights because it encourages them to report to their managers if they have experienced any kind of sexual harassment (Ineson, Yap & Whiting, 2013). Overall, the paper was well written and dealt with some essential problems, which exist in many tourism workplaces. The subject was also interesting and should create wider debates in the future because sexual harassment is a remarkable problem in the tourism industry and it should be better prevented in the future. As the author pointed out, managers have a significant role in this and they should be trained with coherent manners in order to prevent that they won't overlook problems.
However, sexual harassment as a concept is also very problematic because it is often interpreted differently depending on what each victim experiences as sexual harassment. Therefore, it is impossible to define what sexual harassment is exactly and it should be seen as a broad concept (Collier, 1995). The author defined sexual harassment as either unwanted physical behaviour of a sexual nature or unwanted verbal behaviour of a sexual nature. Unwanted non-verbal behaviour of a sexual nature was not mentioned but should be still regarded as sexual harassment because some victims of such behaviour might find it offensive. Unwanted non-verbal behaviour of a sexual nature can relate to such gestures, which intimidate or offend sexually and non-verbally, such as showing pornographic material or giving non-verbal sexual tips through insinuating gestures (Collier, 1995). When further researching the subject, it is therefore essential to comprehend that sexual harassment needs to be recognised from different perspectives and not only from the perspective of unwanted physical or verbal sexual behaviour. To conclude, the author has covered the subject adequately from her point of view but it is important to point out that that the subject is expansive and needs more general additions.


Collier, R. (1995) Combating Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, Managing Work and Organisations, USA: Open University Press

Ineson, E.M., Yap, M.H.T., and Whiting, G. (2013) Sexual discrimination and harassment on the hospitality industry, International Journal of Hospitality Management, 35, pp.1–9