Hostile Environment

Hostile Work Environment - Hostile environment harassment occurs when an employer or employee subjects a person to sufficiently severe or pervasive unwelcome sexual conduct that interferes with their working conditions.

Severe or Pervasive

To best describe Severe or Pervasive is to imagine hornets and mosquitos.

Severe conduct is one or more incidents of serious misconduct. Much like a hornet sting, you know when it happens. It is the hand that touches your inner thigh while sitting in a meeting, or having your buttocks grabbed or slapped.

Pervasive conduct a pattern of less serious but frequent or persistent behaviors over time. Much like the mosquito bite, it can be easy to dismiss or ignore one or two incidents. But when the actions or comments happen over time, they start to interfere with an employee's work environment.

Interfering with Work Conditions

It is important to note that even a small alteration, such as avoiding a co-worker's area due to their comments is interfering with working conditions. It does not have to be major events such as calling in sick or removing themselves from a working group. Something as simple as altering breakrooms or routes to a bathroom to avoid a person is interfering with working conditions.