Aviva Kamm Participates in Forum on Workplace Harassment

Related Practice: Employment

Shareholder Aviva Kamm recently participated in a panel discussion on Workplace Harassment. Hosted by the Puget Sound Business Journal, the Thought Leader Forum covered trends the panelists are seeing in the workplace, especially in the wake of the #MeToo movement.

“The #MeToo movement is bringing this issue higher up on many people’s radar. For my practice, it’s not a fundamental shift but it’s now easier to convince clients to make training a priority. The current discussion is to err on the side of scheduling training, revising the employee handbook this year, bringing in outside expertise, etc.,” Aviva noted.

During the discussion, the panelists added that training and setting the proper corporate culture are vital for a company’s success in addressing and preventing workplace harassment. Creating that culture starts at the top.

“Typically, if you can’t set the culture within leadership you can’t do it anywhere else. You need to set a culture where leadership is attentive and responsive and human,” said Aviva. She added that when a company takes an employee’s complaint seriously and invests in resources, such as an outside investigator, it can carry tremendous weight with the employee.

Ultimately establishing a culture where employees feel safe to raise concern, creating policies that outline accepted behavior, and enforcing those policies are all best practices for preventing harassment in the workplace.

Aviva’s 30-second advice to company leaders: “Culture, policies and enforcement.”