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A Case Study on Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

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A Case Study on Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
Running Head: SEXUAL HARASSMENT

A Case Study on Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
Tami Oostema
Prepared for Davenport University Online
English 110: Advanced Composition
October 13, 2011

Executive Summary The case involves a woman named Paula who is being sexually harassed by a coworker named Richard at her place of employment. Paula is new to the company. She has only been employed there for three months. When Paula looked in the employee’s handbook, she discovered that the company did not have a sexual harassment policy. Paula’s manager, Steve, asked her to investigate what could be done about this problem. Paula has several options. She can ignore the situation and hope it goes away, she could confront the coworker who is harassing her, she could quit her job, or she could suggest to her manager that the company put a sexual harassment policy into place. Implementing a sexual harassment policy would be the best solution to this problem. It would help to end the sexual harassment that Paula is enduring and prevent future incidents of sexual harassment within the company. Implementing a sexual harassment policy would require researching the laws on sexual harassment and making sure the wording in the policy is correct.

Case Background and Overview The sexual harassment case is about a woman named Paula who works in the production department of a medium-size company. Paula’s coworker, Richard, has been harassing Paula for the past month by making inappropriate sexual comments and jokes. This has been making Paula uncomfortable and unable to focus on her work. She looked in the employee’s handbook to find the company’s policy on sexual harassment and discovered that there was no such policy in place. Paula’s boss, Steve, noticed that Paula’s work performance was declining. When he asked Paula what was wrong, she explained the problem to him. She showed him information about U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) laws


References: Helma, M. M. (1992). Sexual harassment. Retrieved from Tepper School of Business website: http://wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu///-case.pdf Roberts, B
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