Work Environment Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Work Environment - Research Paper Example Today firms take great efforts to improve their production volume so as to seize those opportunities effectively. In order to meet the growing demand in the market, companies tend to improve their production and supply and keep recruiting potential employees who can significantly contribute to their overall productivity. This situation has created many job opportunities for people having different educational and social backgrounds. Although sexually diverse workforce is an effective concept to promote people’s fundamental and constitutional rights, it increases the chances of sexual harassment at the workplace. Even though workplace sexual harassment is considered to be a severe criminal offense in the United States, reports indicate that most of such cases go unreported or unnoticed. Sexual harassment is a potential ethical issue in a workplace environment and it is also an offense in the perspective of law. This paper will discuss the legal as well as ethical issues surroun ding sexual harassment in the workplace. Sexual Harassment at Workplace According to the U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), sexual harassment is a â€Å"form of gender discrimination that is in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act† (workharassment.net). Generally, sexual harassment in the worksite environment can be of two types, harassment by a supervisor and harassment by a co-worker. The harassment by a supervisor often results in employment actions like firing, demotion, and tough work assignment; and therefore it is a more severe issue. Unsurprisingly, majority of the harassment complaints still come from women although the number of men filed complaints is noticeably increasing today. While analyzing the harassment complaints filed by men, it seems that a significant percent of them is against female supervisors. According to a study conducted by Lawyers.com and Glamour Magazine jointly (as cited in workharassment.net), 17% of men reporte d that they had a previous experience of sexual harassment whereas the same was reported by 35% of women. In order to obtain a clear view of the intensity of sexual harassment at the US workplaces, it is relevant to evaluate the results obtained from a telephone poll conducted by Louis Harris and Association on 782 US workers in 2008. The telephone poll reported that 31% of female participants were harassed at the workplace while it was 7% in case of male participants. The poll indicated that 100% of women had the harassment experience from their male colleagues/supervisors. When 59% of men reported that the harasser was a woman, the remaining 41% said that the harasser was another man. Frustratingly, only 38% targets took action against the harassers. The telephone poll also revealed that 43% of participants were harassed by a supervisor, 27% by a senior employee, 19% by a coworker at their level, and 8% by a junior employee (workharassment.net). A number of causes including sexual attraction, politics, and psychology may contribute to sexual harassment in worksite environments. It is clear that work relationships can be very intense as individuals often need to closely work with each other to achieve the firm’s common shared goals. Sometimes such relationships may cross professional boundaries as a result of uncontrolled sexual attractions. In addition, differences in political ideologies and beliefs may lead to workplace sexual harassment. Finally, psychological reasons such as divorce or death of spouse can also be a potential cause of sexual harassment at workplace. Ethical Concerns The issue of sexual harassment at the workplace raises many ethical concerns. The Deontological ethics can be best applied to identify the ethical concerns raised by this particular situation. As Hudson (2010) points out,