I had a situation where we hired a senior manager who was in the minority in terms of the culture of the company, he was older than most of the employees, he was more conservative. It was not an issue but I think it contributed to how the situation played out. He was a very, very diligent manager in terms of being very up front with his team, telling them where he was coming from, setting expectations. He went through the sexual harassment training, he prided himself on being a very mature responsible individual, manager, and family man … all of those things.
His team was largely made up of young, attractive females, which didn’t seem to pose any problem initially, until several of those individuals came to me concerned about some behavior on his part. And they were very nervous to come to me because they didn’t think he was aware of what he was doing and it was going to hurt him to know that people were concerned about how he was behaving and so they were reluctant to say. It wasn’t one of those situation where someone said, “This person’s harassing me I want them fired” it wasn’t like that at all. But the issue was, he was doing the elevator eyes.
“Harassment is any unwelcome behavior or comments made by one person to another.” (WomensHealth.gov) Elevator eyes can be one of those unwelcomed behaviors.
They’d come in in the morning dressed very, not provocatively, but interestingly, I’ll put it that way. And apparently he was doing this and they said he would do it in their one-on-ones, they’d notice him doing it if they were walking down the hall, and they got increasingly uncomfortable with that action on his part. And all they wanted was it to stop. That’s all they wanted.
And so I told them I would talk to him. I would keep their names out of it, but that I would have to tell him about the behavior and take it from there. And that’s what I did. Everything worked better than I could have hoped.
He stopped the behavior instantly and he became more aware of things he was doing subconsciously. And everybody was satisfied with the outcome. It was basically everybody lived happily ever after. He was mortified, and he was totally unaware that he was behaving that way.
Whether conscious or unconscious, elevator eyes are one form of sexual harassment.
Consider Accelerate’s online HFC (Harassment Free Culture) training for your organization.
HFC is the best harassment training you can buy because it:
- Has engaging and relatable videos viewable anytime, anywhere; do some in the office, some in the airport or on the plane (LMS permitting);
- Exceeds legal requirements of all fifty US states; and,
- Is provided at a great price.
For more information, email Mike@Accelerate-LD.com.
Photo compliments of Pexels.com
