Workplace Harassment and Discrimination Video Transcript
Welcome everyone. My name is Lori. I am with Career Services at the Gainesville campus and I'm joined today by my director of Career Services, Diane Farrell. She's on the Dahlonega campus. And thank you everyone for joining us. We have some fantastic speakers today to talk about workplace harassment and discrimination, which is something that unfortunately that just doesn't want to go away. Yesterday actually, I was scrolling through Instagram and noticed from a news report talking about how McDonald's now has had hundreds of reports of harassment issues and managers not taking any action on it and people being accused of also retaliatory action. So this is a very timely subject.
And so we have some fantastic human resources experts here today to talk about what is harassment and discrimination in terms of what are some of the legalities? Where is the line crossed? And then of course, what can you do about it if you yourself find that you are being harassed or discriminated against in the workplace. Or if you're witnessing some kind of harassment and discrimination, what can you do about that? So first I'm going to go ahead and introduce our amazing speakers.
So first off, we have Nicole Shriver. She is an HR professional with over seven years of experience in payroll benefits, training, conflict resolution, coaching and recruiting. And she is currently working at IMS Gear in Gainesville. As an HR business partner, she is responsible for building strong relationships with leadership and employees at all levels to achieve successful business outcomes. Nicole is a Society of Human Resources Certified Professional and is also a member of the Foothills of Georgia SHRM chapter. Nicole holds her Bachelor of Science in sociology from North Georgia College, which is what we were before the consolidation and became 果冻传媒. So she's one of our alumni, so fantastic. She began her career in sales and marketing before joining IMS Gear in 2013.
So next up is Maria. Maria Elena Ayala or ME. She is the Human Resources Director for Construction Resources LLC and it's affiliated companies. She has over 25 years of experience in a variety of industries, including the construction industry, logistics and distribution, as well as the HR outsourcing market. Holds a Master of Science degree in industrial organizational psychology, and senior certifications and human resources, as well as the highest certification in benefits. ME is responsible for all areas of human resources for Construction Resources, LLC, which is a home products company based in Decatur. And it has over 750 employees and five states in over 25 locations.
And our last our last presenter is Dr. David Marling. He is the HR compliance officer at 果冻传媒, and he currently oversees risk management training and HR analytics. David oversees also the harassment and discrimination training for all faculty and staff at 果冻传媒. David has worked as the Title Nine Coordinator at 果冻传媒 for six years, where he was investigating and adjudicating both Title Nine and title 11 cases involving students. Dr. Marling, before he came to 果冻传媒, he worked in the private sector for corporate Walmart in both logistics and risk management for seven years. And Dr. Marling has his Bachelor of Science degree, his Master of Science degree, and he also currently holds his PhD in higher education administration from the University of North Texas. So let me stop sharing my screen so you can see are fantastic presenters.
And so first I'm going to kick it off with ME and ME, if you could tell us a little bit about what exactly is harassment and discrimination? What does that line that's crossed when someone can say, okay, this is harassment, this is discrimination. How would you define that? I think.
Hi everybody. Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity to chat with the students and how answer some of the questions. Unfortunately, like like you said, harassment and discrimination is not something that we can just plug off and just be done with it.
Unfortunately, you know, it has to do with, with people. It has to do with upbringing, it has to do with values and personalities and just as varied as we are, each and every one of us, there's going to be different levels of perhaps behaviors or conducts that given specific circumstances can be construed as harassment and discrimination as well. I think the the the most significant difference between harassment and discrimination is that the discrimination includes specific actions that impact the employment opportunities or perhaps educational opportunities depending on the line that you're looking, the discipline that you're looking, harassment occur whenever conduct is directed towards an individual that is based on protected categories.
So you're looking at gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and harassment will combine all those conducts, behaviors. The images, comments, and jokes that target that specific protected category that we'll be considering, right? So it's either sexual jokes in nature or if it's racist jokes and things like that, that would be considered harassment, right?
Then discrimination comes into play when actions are taken about those protected individual categories, they impact their livelihood. You know, if your targeted from a, from a sexual standpoint and not only is it jokes and comments and pictures, but all of a sudden because you don't go with the jist your employment is at stake. Your written up, you're fired, you're demoted, you're transferred to another division when your livelihood and your employment are at stake.
From from a business standpoint, that's when you're talking about discrimination. So it has a direct impact on on your livelihood or your ability to maintain a job. One of the things that is often misconstrued also is the fact that people think that one isolated action, maybe consider discrimination or one isolated action, maybe harassment. We see that a lot. Unfortunately, there are going to be people that will say things that are inappropriate in the workplace.
But sometimes they're one-offs. And as long as you can not show that it has been pervasive and frequent and that it has had a long-term effect on the individual. It's hard to consider that isolated incident as harassment unless isolated instance is specifically so so difficult to swallow, so to speak. You have an incident of sexual harassment were just one time there was touching or there was cornering somebody and and touching them and maybe that was the one time that it occurred. But then it also had impact on the work because they they deflect the, the, the advances that we definitely have harassment and discrimination.
Now, there are going to be instances where somebody makes an off-color joke or make a comment that in some other eyes could be considered harassment. However, it was a one off that they didn't have the impact of pervasive situation over time, then that will be difficult to, to consider it harassment. And I'm going to give you a very simple example. I am Hispanic. English is my second language. And sometimes, you know, I have young kids. Well, young adults, 37, 33. So growing up, you know, raising them, you get the boy and the girl and this and that, you know, enough. It was recently pointed to me that I was referring to one of my employees as boy, in my mind. Boy, I got kids. I have a boy in my house, you know, and I refer I use that word boy very colloquially. However, it was brought to my attention that specifically here in the south, there are certain words that carry a racial connotation. And it so happens to be that boy is one of those.
So, you know, was the intent to offend there? No. Did the person come in and complain about me calling him boy? No. However, somebody around me heard the expression and pointed out to me. So I can assure you I'm not using that word. So even if it wasn't defined as a harassment instance, it is something that can become harassment when the individual doesn't realize that they're utilizing words that may not be appropriate in the workplace.
Some of the other concerns is that, and I see this often in the work environment. I have employees who a manager may come to them and say. Why are you so lazy, you're not doing your job. You were supposed to punch in this box seven times. You only have five while everybody else did it nine. And you start addressing performance. And all of a sudden I get a call from an employee saying so and so managers harassing me. So you have to go through the process of investigation and I'm sure that that we're going to be talking about that as we go down the road. But addressing performance and expecting you to do a job is not harassment. It's not discrimination. And sometimes we tend to use that word very lightly.
And one of my hopes of this panel is that we're going to be able to help you define and better identify when harassment is truly taking place. Thank you so much, ME yeah, it can get pretty complicated. And like you said, that's that's why the HR professionals are there to investigate. And I know Dr. Marling that a lot of what you did, of course, especially with the Title 9, was a lot of investigating. And so from a education higher education perspective, what are some of the differences or similarities to what ME had just talked about in terms of, you know, when students are experiencing harassment or discrimination in the classroom. Yeah. Right.
So there's two different really statutes that we deal with. Sexual harassment. Primarily is going to be Title 9 for students in Title 7 for employees. So, you know, when I did student conduct slash Title nine for students, that was always going to be either a student harassing a student or a faculty or staff member harassing a student. And then there was some Title seven obviously, when it's faculty and staff with one another. I don't do as much Title 9 anymore because I've transition to the area that I'm in. But I think the critical thing to understand is that as ME was saying, that one of the most common things that I saw when I did investigations was clearly there were people that were harassing other people. I mean, we would absolutely have cases, no doubt sexual harassment, right? People giving shoulder massages to students multiple times without really asking permission. Someone commenting on someone's appearance multiple times when you would do kind of see that process, occur and go, Okay. We're reaching that the realm of this is harassment or starting down that road.
And I think ME made a great point too, it can be singular also that like, for example, when I did training and talk to faculty and staff, I could say to someone that I work with, You look really nice today. Okay. That for someone could be offensive, right? Because maybe I'm the boss and they don't feel comfortable with that and that's fine. Would that rise the level of harassment probably not. If they came in my office and I look them up and down. If you look really, really nice today, what are you doing after work? Okay, those are two separate situations, right? I've done two different things. But you can clearly see where this person works for me. Now we've risen to a different level. And again, that would be a different type of case that you'd investigate based on that one, um, severe situation, but as she said it also in some cases be pervasive. So I think that what I saw also though, was lack of communication with people.
Frankly, everybody is very, very different, right? And so for example, mind if somebody hugs me, it doesn't bother me. But I do know people don't like to be touched, right. And there's nothing wrong with that. They're very personal. They like the personal space. And you go up and though your arms around that person, give them a hug and they're going to feel very uncomfortable. Or as ME was saying, someone could talk certain ways and say certain things and not mean anything by it. Right.
But other people take offense to that. And so those are cases too that. I see that's more educational in nature. In higher education, you know, obviously there's the education component. I'm going with students, we really refer to that a lot with faculty staff must much to educate faculty and staff at the same time.
I always tell them, these aren't your peers, these aren't friends, these are your students or your employees. And you need to treat them with respect and not try to be in with them and really try to associate students. And so for me, I think that when you're a certain age, you should know better. And so that's one of the concerns that I do run into in these cases, but I will say that there absolutely had been cases that clearly were sexual harassment or discrimination and some that were more of an opportunity to educate and help. And then every once a while you have someone who you would address the behavior with and they would do it again. And then obviously you would take the next step in the process.
But I think that for students especially, they can experience harassment a couple different ways. Higher education institution or even at work, especially if they're doing if I'm doing , say I'm a clinical nurse and I'm going out and doing rounds or doing working in a business. I'm doing an internship or whatever. Um, we have students experience harassment doing that. And so we can definitely address that from our perspective with the company or the institution that they work with by either saying if that continues, we won't send students anymore or if it's bad enough, just pull our students period. Or in situations where it's on campus, we protect that student's right to educational opportunity.
And so there's that educational opportunity AND employment opportunity that you have to take into consideration the students, especially. Because those are two separate things, right? I have the right to work in an office to get paid, but also have the right to go to class and experienced in educational opportunity. And those are two separate things that we have to deal with. One's title 7 and one's title 9. And so, sometimes you got to wear different hats. And we'll talk a lot more about I know we will about the types of investigations we do, retaliation and false accusations and things like that. So I don't want to go down that route, but I will say the one last thing I would like to say is depending on where you work, especially for folks who are going to move on, they're going to be a myriad of policies which you're going to encounter, right?
I work for University System of Georgia and I've got our policy pulled up right here on my computer screen and I'll probably refer to that some. It is locked in stone for us. Right now. I work for corporate Walmart 15 years ago, and they were light years ahead of higher education in terms of creating policies. So when I transition, I was in higher education for about 15 years, transition there for about seven. And when I came back, frankly, I was a little bit shocked at the way higher education viewed these things and employment practices versus the private sector. But Walmart is probably one of the better ones at that time about dealing with these issues. In terms of creating, policies and procedures, I'm seeing a lot better in higher education.
And the USG really creates that for us. But I'm sure ME and Nicole can talk to you about working in different places. You might go some place has no policy. I mean, basically they got one HR professional for 55 people. And the policy is, did that person harass them? And that's a very different scenario to walk into as an employee. And I know we'll talk more about that. But I want students to be aware of the fact that depending on where you work, where you're at, there could be very, very specific policies in place that protect you and make sure that's a safe work environment and other places you work, there may be very few policies if any, and it's going to be very reactive in nature. And so I just think that students need to go into workplace knowing that there's a myriad of policies out there and the different ways they're implemented and investigated.
Run the gamut, frankly, depending on where you work and even maybe the type of places you work, the profession that you're in, those types of things. So but anyway, I just think that's the critical piece that I should have different. There's no one size fits all when it comes to policies and procedures that you want to put into place.
And some some places don't even have them. Thank you so much, Dr. Marling. Yes. And speaking of that retaliation and and concerns of that Nicole, I'm going to head over to you now. You know, we had thank you for our students who provided questions for our panelists. So I'm going to go to some of the student questions.
Someone had asked a really good one about when someone experiences harassment or discrimination on the job, how do you handle it so that you can avoid being having any kind of retaliation? How how do you handle those kind of situations? How would you approach or who would you approach? And then make sure that you're safe from any kind of, you know, maybe that harassment then turns into discrimination where you're not being promoted and things like that. So how do you handle those kind of situations?
And it's different every place. Here at my location, I work for a manufacturer here in Gainesville. We have production people and we have office staff. What we do is we we promote in our policies and our training with everyone that if they have a problem with somebody, a coworker or a supervisor, that they go to their manager. There's a, there's a chain of command and that you should let your manager know once, you know so that they can look out for you and maybe give you some guidance and help with this situation.
If it's your manager that's harassing you or discriminating against you, then you would go straight to human resources. A lot of companies also have a compliance officer and you can go to that person. If you're uncomfortable. Mainly discrimination, even harassment is about differences in communication. And we've talked about this a lot. Just in our opening statements. It's communication and feeling that you can communicate. A lot of people, individuals don't feel comfortable communicating with their managers sometimes about it and they want to go straight to HR and that's fine too. What HR typically does is start an investigation. They'll ask you and that's what you need to know and be prepared if you're going to issue a complaint, that you probably you will be asked to do it in writing.
You'll be asked for dates and times and if there were any witnesses and things like that. So just be aware of that and have that information ready to go when you're filing a complaint. And that way HR can investigate and then they'll keep it as confidential as they possibly can, but it's not guaranteed. And then they just go back and and usually it's coaching and things like that, retraining. If it's a manager, that manager may need to be retrained depending on the severity of the discrimination or Harassment. There could be disciplinary issues. So a lot of us in the private sector, we have a disciplinary process that we go through with employees. Sometimes we start with verbal warning or written warnings and sometimes due to severity it's you're suspended pending termination review.
And so just be have your information, be open and honest as much as possible and let HR know if there's any witnesses so that they understand that this is a process. It's not going to be fixed overnight. But I I my hat goes off to people I have probably sometimes on a weekly basis It feels like I get someone saying, Hey, I was discriminated against. And after I listened to them, I realize, okay. Or maybe not discrimination. Let me I'm sorry. The lights went off. Let me tell you what discrimination is and, you know, then I can walk them through what's really going on. It could be a manager just playing favorites and that we can't, we don't like that either though. And that might be as simple as making the manager and knowledgeable. It might be as simple as getting you and that person talking and communicating.
So it could be simple, it could take a long process. Excellent. Thank you so much, Nicole and ME. I'm going to turn this back over to you with this next question.
And we hear about this a lot where a lot of people who have been the victims of harassment or discrimination are not believed. You see a lot of people in the media saying, Well, why did they wait so long? It can't be true that person they would never do that. It's so how do you make sure that your manager or your chain of command believes you? How do you make sure that that happens? I would say that the very first step is you have to have a, a good, solid policy. In addition to having the policy it is your responsibility as an employer to ensure that your managers and the employees understand and know the policy. It is very difficult to hold people accountable when they have no clue that what they're doing is wrong. Okay? Some things that we think are common sense. If common sense was that common, we wouldn't have a lot of the problems that we have nowadays.
I like one of the things that that David pointed out in is the fact that, you know, the the policies are there to protect. You, right. Us as employees, the policies do protect the employee. However, we seem to forget often that the policies also set the guidelines for our own behavior at work. So it's not there just to protect the employees, but it's also a there to direct the employees as to what behaviors are appropriate and not. And that is where the training is so important, a manager will not know that a certain behavior is offensive unless they go through a formal training and you can discuss openly. What would nowadays be considered offensive before sexual harassment was considered to be only on those instance says that this for that, you know, what, if you didn't have sex with the individual, you would lose their jobs, right? So people go like, I don't touch any body, you know, the managers thing, but I don't I don't say inappropriate things. I don't know. I'm happily married.
Yet, The comments that they will make are similar to all my gosh, why are we bringing women in this manufacturing environment? They can't deal with the weight that we are dealing with. And the guys can, can holder or process in a manufacturing environment. And those are very discriminatory comments about female workers. Okay. So how does somebody know that they may be crossing the line? And it is our responsibilities as HR professionals and hopefully your, responsibility one day, become HR professionals or business professionals to ensure that people understand what the policies are. One of the things that I hold accountable to all our managers, even the new ones, have you even read our handbook.
Because when the manager hasn't read the handbook, how are you going to discipline if you don't know what the guidelines are? And the same way that sexual harassment, people tend to think that it's only goes from the boss to the employee because there is an authority and power, right? But it, it goes further than that. You can have sexual harassment. You can have a very hostile environment by people at the same level. But the fact that it's a direct attack and it's constant, and the person may not lose their job.
But they may start losing time. They may start under-performing. They may start reacting negatively in and just yelling at somebody else or even to the harasser. And that puts their job in jeopardy and granted, the harasser is not the person yanking the job the job out of the person who's being harassed, the behavior is impacting them. So that is why we need to make sure that the training is not only directed to the managers, but that employees are part of that hands on training where you go through all the behaviors that are not tolerated.
The second aspect, beyond training is consistency as an employer, you have to make sure that you apply those rules to same way across the board. Whereas in one location, somebody may think that it's normal to have certain jokes around and a different location is not as acceptable. Because you have more of a diverse workplace and people tend to be more alert to the way that others refer to them. You have to maintain the standard for absolutely everybody.
You can not treat one employee and just pass the hand as though you're good, Just don't do it again. And then another employee, you're going you're fired them on the spot because they use a word that was inappropriate. You see, so consistency in the policies is probably the most important aspect of it are beyond training.
Think of a policy as a piece of paper and every time you don't act consistently, a dig a hole, your poke a hole into each and every one of those little bits of the policy. At the end of the day, you don't have a policy, you have a colander. So everything is going through and that consistency and how you address matters, is important. Excellent.
Thank you so much. Dr. Marling Another piece to that as well, when it comes to would someone will someone believe me, is making sure you document and have some evidence like Nicole was saying, you know, are there witnesses and things like that. So Dr. Marling, what would you say would be considered evidence if someone were to witness this or to be the victim of this, what would they need to collect? What would they need to do? Well, I'll tell you that the interesting thing, and I think a lot of people really look at a Title 9 investigation, Title 7, investigation and discrimination, whatever investigation as illegal investigation, right.
Like I'm a detective and I'm going out to corner people. I'm going to lie to people to try to get the information that I need to get to my gotcha moments. And then I'm going to have to go for a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt that this occur. Right. And that's really not at all how an investigation goes. It's an administrative process. Right? I can't lot of someone when I'm doing an investigation, I can't lie to either party to try glean information that I want, first of all, so when I work with employees who are reporting sexual harassment or any sort of harassment. And you talk about believability.
The problem is that 75 percent the cases I see, it's basically one party says this happened, the other partner says that happened and you just don't have that five people saw it, or there's a paper trail or the one I always tell people it's like, you know, document to the best of your ability. But when you're going to report a case, report it because you want to be heard, not because you want to win. Okay. And the reason I say that is because lot less people going to report a case going, I want this person fired I want this terrible thing. What they did to me was completely inappropriate and we may not be able to prove what that person did. Right. The standard normally for us is going to be graded where the evidence or more what's more likely than not to have occurred. Okay. Well, if Diane says this happened and David says this happened, what evidence do I have?
Is it that David's worked here longer and I asked him, Is it that Diane seems more believable? Why would she make this up? Is it that David's my buddy? Is it that Dan's my cousin? Well, really there's nothing, right? So the thing you have to have is some piece of evidence be it an e-mail if the witness statements, somebody admits to something, right.
So there are going to be cases where you just don't have enough evidence to find that person responsible for policy violations. And sometimes even if you do, as ME talked about, there's going to be a an educational process. You want them to alter their behavior. I think Nicole talked about that as well. So what I tell folks is you want to go in with the concept of, I want this addressed for my own mental health and ability to work and environment. Once I'll report this, the process is going to start. That's going to force this person to change their behavior. And by the way, we were talking about power differential, I can sexually harassed my boss.
Anyone can sexually harass anyone. There's no You see it usually the other way around, but it can happen in any relationship. So the fact that you're getting it addressed and you're putting your concerns out there critical because first of all, we don't put people's HR HR. What am I trying to say? No one can go and look at my files, my HR files, right? I can have a history of behavior. No one knows about it. But I'm afraid to report it that David did it because no one would ever believe me when in fact, if you would have reported it, you would have followed that same process and shown that my behavior is consistent with what others are reported, I might lose my job, right? So I think the most critical thing is don't go in thinking they're not going to believe me or I'm not going to be believe. It's do I want the process to help me have a better experience at work, right? They'd go in and tell your story.
And if basically they say, well, there's not enough here, that's fine. I just want the behavior to stop. Okay? If they said there's enough here, but the steps we're going to take, maybe the rise, the level you want them to. That's fine. The whole point for you is to make the place a better place to work, okay? And so I just always really urge people when they go into that. Don't go in scared from the standpoint of are they going to believe me or not? Go in saying I want the, the situation and the culture, what I'm at, of what I'm experiencing to change, it's going to be scary. I mean, usually what I've done investigations, all parties are nervous, right?
I mean, it's a serious situation, especially when you're accused of something, everyone's scared. So I'm not trying to be flip and saying Don't be nervous when you go in. But again, just make sure that you understand the possible outcomes once you go through the investigative process. And and yeah, I will just tell you from experience, you just don't have a whole lot of this is an easy, open and shut case, clear, concise. They're almost always 75 percent in my cases are clear as mud, right? You do a whole lot of digging, spent a lot of time and energy to try to figure out what may or may not have occurred and sometimes you just can't tell.
So you just say, if that happened, don't do it anymore. And you see that I will tell you from experience, 95% of the time that changes the person's behavior that was accused, almost always. Every once in a while you have someone that it doesn't and then you take the next step in the process with them. But that would be again. Yes. Video evidence, all these things great. You can have that, but many times you're not. And so it's just, again, not a matter of being believed but being heard and hoping that by coming forward, you're going to alter the environment that you work in make it a safer and more effective place for you to work.
Excellent. Thank you so much. And Nicole, kind of along the same lines because then the opposite side of that is the person who's being accused. And there was this instance back when I was in college and one of my summer jobs, it was working in a warehouse. And there were a lot of off-color jokes, but everybody said, um, and of course at the time I was young, so I was just like whatever. I just kept my head down, did my job. But my coworker and the manager would often joke with each other. Both of them they both would joke with each other.
And then I have I left because I was going back to school and that my co-worker ended up quitting her job and right after she quit. She then tried to sue the manager for harassment and saying that he was always saying these off-color jokes. And so of course, a manager reached out to me and said, what was going on here was it was I harassing? I was like, she told the same jokes. I didn't think it was harassing because she told the same jokes as him.
And then it turned out she had a pattern of everytime that she would quit a job, she would sue for harassment. So what happens when it becomes like these false accusations that are genuinely false accusations? How does that that person who's being accused, how do they handle that situation, Nicole. I mean, it's it is sad that that there are instances where someone is habitual at that where if they get fired or leave a job that they tend to file complaints against somebody.
But usually there's an underlying, like in your case that manager was making off color types types of comments or jokes or whatever that he probably shouldn't have been doing in a professional setting. And so it's very important that people understand when you go to work, whether you're working in a very casual place or you're working in a very wear a suit and tie or whatever. When you go to work, factory, non factory, there’s an expectation of professionalism with everyone. And it's not, you don't speak at work like you speak when you're at a bar, or with your friends. And so as long as people do that, you don't give people any, you know, anything that used against you in certain ways. But there are times when people can make things up or misinterpret because everybody has their own perception of what happens, what was said, and may not even been way. I deal with situations where one person says they said one thing and everybody, somebody else heard it, something else.
And and, you know, you would have to look at this each situation individually and bring the parties together if they're still working together and get everyone on the same page with coaching and things like that. But if it's an employee that had been terminated, it's it's really they're going to have to provide something, either other people there, say the same things. They're going to have to provide something to prove to be able to go after you and a lawsuit or most people, you know what file like a, you know, a suit against you, a claim against you what the EEOC.
So you have different options when you feel that you've been discriminated against or harassed. And also, if the company has a policy in place and you didn't follow the policy of letting them know let them know before you left, that this is why you're leaving and give them a chance or opportunity to fix it or to even be aware of it. I mean, I I don't know of many cases that were those are successful, but they certainly people certainly try most companies when they get types, certain types of complaints or have a lawyer send them a letter, this person was harassed. It's usually a low settlement before it even goes anywhere and they usually just settle for a low amount just to get rid of it. But it all has to be investigated either way.
Lori I want to jump in and say, amen 15 times to, what she just said, especially about professionalism in the workplace. And I'll piggyback off the story you just told me is that as a professional, it's a workplace, right? You're expected to maintain a professional attitude simply because someone else says and acts a certain way doesn't mean you should do the same thing. And I agree a 100 percent when you do that, you're really going to open yourself up to possible situations that you're accused of something.
Let me just go back to one thing really quickly. False complaints because this is something as someone who did Title 9 investigations for a long time. It would drive me crazy when someone would say, well, they made it up as a false complaint. Probably investigated 200 cases, probably close to 300. Frankly, I've had maybe two that were clearly a fabrication of some sort where you would say is and I want to read our false complaints policy at North Georgia, false and malicious complaints of sexual harassment, as opposed to complaints which, even if erroneous, are made in good faith. So let's think about that. May be subject to appropriate disciplinary action.
Let me go back to what I said though, as opposed to complaints which even if erroneous are made in good faith. And that goes back to exactly what Nicole was just talking about, where I may feel like someone did something inappropriate to me. It doesn't mean they did, but it doesn't mean because I feel that I'm making it up. Okay. And so people just need to understand that. Yes, you're going to have cases sometimes where someone is a malcontents who gets terminated and files 55 complaints that happens. Trust me, we see that for sure.
But I will say that if you if you behave professionally, you're pretty much going to be okay because it is a workplace environment. And again, when I talk about the concept of false complaints malicious complaints, we just don't see that a whole lot. Usually there's maybe a confusing situation where someone doesn't communicate well with someone else and we addressed that. But another piece just to me, I'm sorry. It's not like you get a complaint and you terminate someone immediately. I think they've talked about the investigative process. I mean, we have different processes for faculty and staff.
There's hearing panels, there's to revoke tenure from a faculty member. You gotta go to a separate process. I mean, it's like people have a lot of protections with you have a good HR policy. I know Emily taught ME, talked about that too. The importance of following your policy and having positive procedures in place to protect all parties, not just the person making the accusation, but the person who is being accused. So I'll get off my soapbox about false complaints. But somebody to investigate a lot of complaints. I can just tell you from experience, I got very, very few that I would go, that's false and that person made that up.
Now that's fantastic. I mean, obviously, you know, I brought this story up especially because I was still in college. So I was like a lot of our students that are here today, so I most certainly didn't know any HR policies. There's also back in the day when a lot of this was still kind of they're just making it up. It's you know, it's not true. And I most certainly didn't know who to go to. I just kinda thought that's how it was in the workplace. Just that's how I was the manager was doing. The workers were doing it. I guess that's just how it is.
And so I think now especially because we've seen so many instances and seeing the Me Too movement and so many times where people have brought this out staying, No, this is not how it should be. This is not standard. This is not okay. I think now that's why I think I mean, certainly if that were to happen now, oh, no. I wouldn't just be like, Okay. Yeah, that wouldn't happen. You know, definitely different times and in much wiser. Now. So that's why I wanted to make sure our students, if they were to find themselves in a situation where it's just, you know, everyone says, Well, that's just the environment.
No, not so much. And ME, I'm going to go back to you one of the other questions and we had talks about this as well a couple a couple months ago about you know, are things getting better in terms of, you know, are there other improving trends when it comes to harassment and discrimination? Because more of this is being brought to light, you know, there are a lot of a class action discrimination lawsuits and really holding people accountable for their actions. Are you seeing any changes towards the positive?
Where were, you know, people are being more aware and making sure they don't make these kind of things happen in the workplace. I think it's I don't want to say it's getting better because I don't feel that's the case for a fact. But I think it's becoming more visible. Sometimes things need to get really, really bad before they start going upward and getting better. You know, I think an excellent example and I shared this article with all of you, but, you know, when we were meeting about the seminar was the investigation on Governor Cuomo or ex Governor Cuomo. This is a person with a long history in, in the public eye.
This is somebody who has made a lot of allies and a lot of enemies. And these claims were coming up and some how the personality, the celebrity, the governor, you know, qualities always came above and could crush the comments and the complaints. We are in a time where everything is videotape, where everything is recorded or TikTok, Twitter, you know, there's so many venues for people to call out behaviors that I think that even though that that could go both ways and, and be negative because we're exposing situations that may not be true.
You know, we were doing false accusations because there are people out there who will make bad jokes to bait the manager, and then the manager goes along. But I agree with both David and Nicole, the manager should be held to a higher standard. So whether the incidents were provoked or whether the incidents were deliberate from, from Governor Cuomo or whichever side of the bottle you want to be in. There is the common thread.
And it is that the claims had been there, that it had been repeatedly an issue, and that the power that the individual committing the harassment had over the victims was so prevalent that the victims, they didn't have a space. Then bring technology into the mix, all of a sudden we have recordings of inappropriate conversations. We have pictures and inappropriate touching, are getting too close to somebody in a way that seems intimate, an inappropriate for the workplace. You know. I'm so, so I think it is becoming more visible and people can react better. People have been exposed more to the information and why it is appropriate that when they see it, like in your example, Lori, if you see it today, you would know that that was not right.
But back in the day when we didn't have all this technology that we can access from anywhere in the world. Those behaviors were not known. So in a hopeful way, I want to think that it's getting better. Because I think that, that managers and people in power will be a lot more careful. And I don't mean careful not to be filmed, but careful not to be caught. And the only way you're not going to be caught if you're not doing something inappropriate.
Even if it is for fear. I want to think that things are getting better. I can tell you for a fact that they are, you know, because the person harasses and discriminates is typically a person in a certain level or degree of power. So there will always be means to do things covert. And under wraps. And as long as you don't get caught, there's not a problem. Many of the individuals that go through these allegations, the only reason they're sorry because they got caught not because they realize that the behavior was inappropriate, you know. So as an HR professional, it is my go to train and teach and develop. My management team.
And by doing that, I feel like we are getting better. As long as you could hold the same stick to everybody. You know. I'm so, so, you know, you guys that are growing in your education that are pursuing careers in the next year, maybe the next six months that are looking to, to be part of this progressive world that we live in. It is going to be up to you as well to make things better. So it is going to be difficult because some of the managers, you know, I saw some of the questions. I know it's like, how do I what do I do if I get harassed? Is that going to close my doors? And hopefully, you will be in organizations that have strong HR and management teams that will be able to give space and place to your voice.
Because yes, Me Too movement was out there. People don't mention it anymore. So it was Me Too a fab or did it truly make changes? Yes. People are in jail today because of the Me Too movement. But it shouldn't be a movement. You see, there should be a practice not to act in ways that are discriminatory or harassing to people who are different than you. And Lori, can I, I'm sorry, I keep like these incredible points and that's such a great point that ME just made.
Having done title nine for a long time. I always tell police and especially other students, predators are always going to be predators. That's just the reality of the situation. You're going to have people that are predatory nature. They get in positions of power that try to take advantage of that. And so our job as HR professionals is to and co-workers for that matter, is not to be the wingman for those people or when women or whatever, not to enable that behavior. When you start to see things happen that you know are wrong address it.
And again, you know, I I agree. Lori when I said that earlier it wasn't that I was talking about from a professional standpoint I would have done the same thing back in the day, I would have been like, hey, that's the way it is, right? And I think that what we have to do is create the cultures and the places we work and say, no, that's not acceptable. I'm not going to work at this place. I'm going to report this person's behavior.
And every inch that you give, especially to people who are predatory nature, they're quickly going to take a mile. They begin to get comfortable and say, Hey, I can do this and they will push the envelope until either A, they continue with that behaviour and it's successful, or B, it's addressed and now move on and try it someplace else. So and again, to go back to turning a cruise ship, right? So we were headed in one direction and it gets slowly but surely starting to turn. It's going to take years, maybe decades to get to the place we need to be. But ME makes a great point. It's the students that are listening to this today.
It's people younger than me. They're going to be the ones that create that environment. Because it takes so long to change a culture, to change the mindset that what's normal for people their age, people in their sixties right now would think that's ridiculous, right? That's just the way it is. You know, whether they're going to go now that's not the way it is. This is the way it is. And they're going to create that culture that's going to change. But it's going to be a long-term. The process obviously to change a culture like that.
So, great points. ME managed want to piggyback off of those? Fantastic, Excellent. So we're getting close to the end of our hour. I mean, I can't believe how quickly it has gone by such fantastic information. So anyone want to get any of the students here. If you have any questions, feel free to go ahead and put those in the chat. But since we're winding down to just the last couple of minutes, I'm going to go ahead and start going through the last rounds of any kind of advice or information that you would like to share.
So Nicole, I'm going to start with you. So is there anything else that you would like for the students to be aware of in terms of any kind of harassment or discrimination, how to handle things in the workplace. You know, anything that we've been talking about, anything else that you want to make sure that they're aware of? Yeah. I mean, there's always going to be workplaces that maybe you don't fit into, that you're not comfortable in. But when those behaviors of other people rise to levels that are protected like a discrimination title 7, whether you're you know, what your color is, what your sex is what your you know, you may even be a disability or something like that. We are protected. Know that you are protected.
There are laws that protect us. And you need to be vocal. You need to make sure either the management or your HR person has that information so that the culture can change. It's not going to change. If no one says nothing, we have to speak up. And it is our job as HR people, managers. The executive team is to make sure that we have an enriched environment where people can come and talk to us and feel that they will be heard, that there is a process. We do investigate. Even if it's a he said she said situation, there's going to be something that we can do to try to make it better, or have the two parties come together and understand each other.
A lot of things like I said before is communication. You have to tell people how you want them to communicate to you. They're not going to know unless you tell them. And you should wait as a person until someone tells you how to communicate to them. So yes, some people you can be more casual with and some people you have to be more straight line then, you know, professional with you guys are going out into the workforce.
It's exciting, it's new. And there's a lot of mistakes you're going to make and you may get called into office and say you can't do that. Just be understanding and be able to receive that information, that critique and change your behavior and then you will be successful. Thank you so much Nicole. ME, What? Any last thoughts? Remember always that you don't define what is discrimination or harassment. If you're the person being accused, who defines that is the person who identifies themselves as victim.
So your intent, your thought process when you use certain words or did certain actions, may have not been meant to be harassing or intimidating or discriminating. However, it is the person who is hearing them on the side or who is the subject of such comments. That is going to define. And that is why so many people get surprised when they are called up, you know, as, as harassing or bullying or discriminating against others. So, you know, it's, it's really easy to see when somebody else is their actions or their words have an impact on you. And not realize how my words and my actions are impacting somebody else.
So be mindful about that. The definition of harassment always lies on the person who is perceiving it as being the recipient of harassment. So the intent, you know, your your thought process behind that, that doesn't matter. It's the person who was suffering and reporting it. So we'll get in that position and hopefully you won't be in that position where you will have to complain about harassing behaviors or discrimination. It is about how you perceive it or how the person is perceiving our actions or your words.
So, you know, again, go back to the policy that protects you, but it also sounds to you accountable. So you have the plain rules on how workplace the workplace environment should be. Carried on. Excellent. Thank you so much, Dr. Marling. You get the last couple of minutes. What last thoughts would you like to give to our students? I want to jump in really quick because someone asked about what about false accusations and maybe they weren't here I talked about earlier. I just want to be very clear in that and that you have to investigate claims the same way and have the same burden of proof. The burden of proof of finding a person responsible for policy violation is spread by the evidence.
The burden of proof for me to say someone made something up and fabricated, placated a claim is also the same level of right away the evidence are there texts messages to show that this person's texting other people saying I'm going to get this person, do they have a pattern of falsely accusing individuals? All those types of things? So again, they're definitely can be situations and you will investigate those. But simply because you don't prove something true, doesn't make it false. It just means you couldn't prove it, right. So things can occur that can't be proven. So I'm going to go back and address that comment really quickly then.
I would just say to students, you know two things. One is, be professional. Don't go into an environment thinking this is a place to go, be social and hang out. You may go and work someplace where that's the case, right? But always hold yourself to a level of professionalism. You should be able to have fun at work to a certain extent, but it's still called work for a reason. Right? You're supposed to be able to get a job done and be a professional in nature. And that's one thing that's really important for students to understand, is just again, yeah, behave professionally. And don't ever take anything for granted in terms of how you might impact others, not just with what you say and do in a negative way, what you say and do in a positive way.
Because if you are especially in a management position or a young professional, that others are looking to say, how am I supposed to act? Was the culture going to be at this place? If you're a professional and treat people with respect and dignity, a lot of times other people are going to watch that and go, Hey, maybe that's what I should be doing.
And so that would be my big takeaway from this for students is to go in and try and create that culture that you want in the workplace. And sometimes you might go somewhere and that culture is not there and you're not comfortable, you might go, you know what I'm going to find another job, it's got that culture for me and that's okay too.
But always know that your goal is maybe trying to create and encourage others to do that to the best of your ability so that those situations don't arise. Excellent. Thank you so much. Well, we are at exactly one hour. I'm sure we could go on forever because there's so much information and so much good advice here.
So thank you again. ME, Nicole Dr. Marling for taking time out of your super busy schedules to talk to our students. I really, really, really appreciate it. And I'm sure everyone here got a wealth of information that they can use in their careers.