If you are the subject of inappropriate jokes, sexual advances, or other unwelcome attention, you may be a victim of sexual harassment. As a general rule, this type of harassment occurs when another person’s actions create a hostile working environment. A hostile working environment is defined as one that makes it difficult for a reasonable person to focus on his or her job. Let’s take a closer look at what you can do if you feel as if you have experienced inappropriate conduct in the workplace.

Every worker deserves to feel safe in their workplace. This is not only a fact, but it’s the law—employers are legally obligated to ensure discrimination and workplace harassment aren’t happening in their places of employment and to their workers. Certain actions can be considered harassment in a workplace when those actions take away or harm someone’s ability to do their job and/or are deemed inappropriate for a workplace situation.

When someone has been sexually harassed, you might think that they’ll immediately want to seek justice and report what happened to them. But that’s not always the case. Sexual harassment is a complicated situation in the way that victims might not act how you expect them to act—but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been harmed.

When you are at work, whether it’s in an office setting or a virtual environment, you expect everyone to act professionally. You think that your coworkers and bosses will all respect you and won’t engage in any kind of misconduct—at least that’s what you hope. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case, and some coworkers or higher ups decide to sexually harass you or other workers.

This could happen in person or virtually, which makes it even more daunting to experience because it feels like they can follow you anywhere. That’s why it’s important to know exactly what sexual harassment is so that you can identify it and quickly report it to superiors.

In recent years, sexual harassment cases have gone up. Whether this means it’s happening more is debatable, since this could mean that victims are more willing to speak up now than they were before. This could be a good thing because it means victims feel stronger and less suppressed from reporting their harassment. However, most of the time it’s still hard for victims to actually see justice because of the burden of proof.

You should always feel safe and respected in the workplace. In an ideal world, everyone is treated equally, but unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world. Many employers and workers still harass and discriminate against their employees or coworkers even though it is illegal.

Filing an employment law claim is not something you do lightly. When you choose to file an employment law claim, you are probably more worried about getting justice than how long it will take. But as you get further into the process, you probably want to know how long the claim will take to settle just so you fully understand what you are getting in to.

The Supreme Court made a major decision on June 15, 2020. They ruled that discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity was unconstitutional, based on the language in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This act prohibits sex discrimination.

As an employee, you do your best to meet your job obligations and be a team player. When a coworker, supervisor, or employer makes your work environment uncomfortable, it can affect you in a number of ways and make it hard to work. Victims of harassment need to know that harassment is illegal and employment laws can help.

If you’ve experienced inappropriate behavior at work from an employer or coworkers, it’s important to understand the line between unwanted attention and harassment. Having this knowledge will help you decide what type of action to take to protect yourself.

Reporting an instance of on-the-job sexual harassment to your Human Resources (HR) department doesn’t always go the way you expect. Reporting to HR is the first step you should always take, but unfortunately, they may take steps to downplay or brush off what happened or delay looking into what happened in hopes of not having to take action against your claim. If you’re in situation like this, what are your options when HR ignores your sexual harassment claim? Let’s take a look at some other options you may have.