Supervisor Supplement

Supervisors are held to a higher standard, and this course is about what that actually means when something happens on your watch. It is the supplement to the employee training, not a repeat of it.

You will learn why a supervisor conditioning a job benefit on sex is the most severe form of harassment there is, and why relationships with subordinates are the ones that end up in court — worked through the Supreme Court’s first sexual harassment case, Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, where the employer’s defence was that the relationship was “voluntary” and the Court held that voluntary is not the question. Whether the conduct was welcome is — and the person who decides is the person it happened to.

The course then turns to the part supervisors get wrong: what to do once you know. Handling a complaint without making the complainant a target. Why you should never promise confidentiality. Why a supervisor who has been accused must stop making decisions about the accuser. How retaliation now reaches past the complainant to their family and close friends. And why, as an agent of your organisation, what you know your organisation knows. It closes with two frameworks it teaches by name — the 5 Rs (Recognize, Respond, Record, Report, No Retaliation) and the 10 Rules of Respect.

Who it’s for: anyone who supervises people, after they have taken the employee course. Presented on camera by employment lawyers at Ogletree Deakins.