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She's conducting phone sex at the office

By Trafimow, A Jonathan
Publication: Workforce
Date: Saturday, February 1 2003
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION 2

Q: One of our senior vice presidents has known about an out-ofthe-ordinary case of sexual harassment in his department for more than two months and did not inform HR of what was happening. One of the

clerks, who had been there for about four months, was having phone sex and sexually provocative conversations with a number of men for up to five hours each workday. She was also using the company's intranet to e-mail sexually explicit messages to men across the country. We think she may have been receiving money for her services.Another employee, who was new, reported this to the VP and other members of senior management numerous times. She said she could not bear to hear the phone-sex conversations any longer, and that it was affecting her job performance.

Copies of some of the clerk's pornographic e-mails were anonymously placed on the new employee's desk, and she took them to the vice president. He allowed the secretary to resign but has retaliated against the new employee, writing her up, a week after the incident, for tardiness. Furthermore, he did not report the sexual-harassment issue to HR. We were told only that there was a "breach of security" in the office involving improper access to e-mails. The new employee is threatening to seek legal advice because of the retaliation and would like to be transferred to another department. How can we handle this situation? to everyone's satisfaction-or is that even possible?

In addition, make sure to read these articles:

Construction Business: How to Motivate Employees
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