Policy: Harassment
Page 1 of 3
Effective Date: 8/20/2015
Policy
The League will not permit harassment of any employee on the basis of gender,
race, religion, color, age, disability, national origin, sexual orientation or identity,
familial status or any other status protected by the law. The League will also not
permit retaliation against an employee for filing a complaint or cooperating in an
investigation. League and Insurance Trust board members are also covered by this
policy. Board members who engage in illegal harassment or retaliation will be
subject to Board sanctions, up to, and including, removal from the League or
Insurance Trust Board.
An employee who engages in harassment or retaliation will be subject to
disciplinary or remedial action up to, and including, termination of employment.
Supervisors or managers who permit employees under their supervision to engage
in such behavior, or who retaliate or permit retaliation against an employee for
reporting harassment or participating in an investigation will be subject to
disciplinary or other remedial action. The action may include training, coaching or
imposition of discipline up to, and including, termination of employment.
Harassment
Definition &
Types
Definition & Examples
Harassment can occur based on any protected status; for example, it is unlawful to
harass a person because of that person’s race or color. In the case of racial
harassment, the harassing behaviors might include racial slurs, offensive or
derogatory remarks about a person's race or color, or the display of raciallyoffensive symbols.
Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated
incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or
severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in
an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).1
1
While behaviors such as simple teasing and offhand comments may not be serious enough to require an
investigation, any employee who is bothered or offended by another employee’s jokes, offhand comments or
League of Minnesota Cities Employee Handbook
Harassment
Page 1
The harasser can be the victim's supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a coworker, or someone who is not a League employee, such as a client, vendor or
member.
Sexual
Harassment
Sexual harassment is a particular type of harassment that includes any unwelcome
sexual advance, request for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical conduct of a
sexual nature when:
1. Submission to such conduct is made, either explicitly or implicitly, a term or
condition of employment;
2. Submission to or rejection of such conduct is used as a factor in any
employment decision affecting any individual; or
3. Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with
any employee’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or
offensive work environment
Examples of conduct and activity constituting sexual harassment include, but are
not limited to:
Repeated and/or offensive sexual flirtations;
Sexually oriented advances;
Propositions or use of continued or repeated verbal expressions of a sexual nature;
Use of offensive or sexually oriented language;
Graphic or verbal sexually oriented commentaries about an individual’s body;
Use of sexually oriented or degrading words to describe an individual;
The display in the workplace or sexually suggestive objects or pictures; or
Any behavior directed at another individual which would not be so directed except
for the gender or sexual orientation of the individual
Reporting a
Complaint of
Harassment
The League will take actions to respond to and protect you from any sort of
harassing behavior from anyone you come in contact2 with during the course of
performing your job duties. This includes other employees, supervisors, managers,
members of the Board of Directors, vendors, contractors and representatives of
teasing is encouraged to speak to the person directly. If that does not result in resolution, the employee is
welcome to bring the matter to the attention of his or her supervisor.
2
The League will make every effort to address harassment of League employees by individuals with whom they
come into contact who are not employees of the League. This may include reporting the behavior to the employer
of the alleged harasser or taking steps to limit contact between the employee and the outside party.
Harassment
Page 2
League members3. If you believe you have been a victim of harassment, you should
follow the steps outlined in the Discrimination Complaint policy.
If you observe or learn of conduct which may be harassing, you should report such
conduct promptly. If you are a supervisor or manager, you are required as part of
your job duties to report such conduct promptly and you may be subject to
disciplinary action if you fail to report it. When reporting an incident of harassment,
you may choose to bring an additional person with you to make the report. You
should initially make the report to your department director, unless the department
director is involved in the conduct in which case the report should be made to the
Human Resources Director.4
The
Investigation
and
Confidentiality
The League will investigate all complaints of harassing conduct as promptly as
possible using the process outlined in the Discrimination Complaints policy.
Information about investigations will be shared with individuals making complaints,
with individuals against whom complaints are made and other League managers
and supervisors only on a need-to-know basis.
The amount of information disclosed will depend on the particular complaint. For
example, the individual(s) accused of harassment must know enough about the
charges to be able to respond. In addition, sharing information with those persons
who are interviewed as part of the investigation will probably be necessary in order
to conduct a thorough investigation. Reasonable efforts will be made to limit
dissemination of information only to those persons with a business reason for
having it.
Resolution of
Harassment
Complaints
The League will take appropriate action to correct any reported harassment to the
extent evidence is available to verify the alleged harassment or any related
retaliation.
3
If an employee is offended or bothered by an overall work or team environment, he or she is encouraged to
speak directly with the team leader or department director. If that does not resolve the matter, the employee may
speak with any member of the Human Resources staff.
4
See the Discrimination Policy for further information on reporting procedures when the Human Resources
Director or others with formal duties under this policy are part of the alleged conduct.
Harassment
Page 3