Most employers have a sexual harassment policy, but many do not have a similar code of conduct for general interpersonal relationships.  Why would your business want a civil code of conduct?

• Employers who fail to have such a policy may leave themselves open to a hostile work environment claim.  Keep in mind that employees are more litigious than ever.
• Weeding out offenders will help with employee retention, which may become an issue as the economy rises out of the recession and workers feel more secure about venturing out to find a new job.
• A civil work environment is a lot better for morale, benefiting productivity and employee health.
• In extreme circumstances allowing jerks to prosper could lead to workplace violence, which no employer ever wants to face.

If you do not have a civil code of conduct, develop a simple one now.  A civility policy needs to the usual sections, a simple statement of the code of conduct, separate from your harassment policy, a means of documenting violators, counseling them, and the usual escalation procedures, up to an including firing the offender.

Then of course your company must uniformly enforce these rules. This last bit is really important…

In a recent case a professor of Middle Eastern descent faced anonymous harassment.  The jerk in this case would leave notes threatening the professor calling him racist names, but the culprit could not be identified.  The administration emailed all the students and faculty campus-wide reminding everyone to treat one another with respect and asked students to come forward if they had any information regarding the harassment.  The college also filed a police report regarding the harassment.  Later on the professor was terminated for unrelated reasons; he went to court claiming he had been subjected to a hostile work environment.  The court disagreed stating the college had done everything it could.

What does your workplace civil code of conduct look like? Do you have a story you would like to share with other readers? We would love to hear from  you.

If you need help with this issue or any other, remember, small business services and taxation are our business.  Please give Art & Business Consulting a call.  We would love to engage you as a client.

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