Have you ever noticed that your employees define many workplace terms quite differently than you do? Words like discrimination, retaliation, and harassment have a very different meaning to a lot of your employees than they do to you. They are convinced that anything that may fit the dictionary definition of these words is automatically illegal. So I've compiled a tongue-in-cheek list of definitions so that you can understand what your employees mean when they come to you complaining.
"I've been discriminated against." This means: "Someone else got something that I want, so you have to give it to me, too." Note that this does not necessarily mean that any discrimination, as the law defines it, exists; it means only that the employee didn't get what they want. Whether it's time off or a free pass from a disliked task, the employee sees it as discrimination because someone else got it and not them.
"I'm being harassed." This means that someone is doing something that the employee doesn't like. It may or may not have anything to do with the employee, but the employee doesn't like it. Whether it's a supervisor requiring the employee to get to work on time, or a co-worker describing his romantic weekend away to a third party, but within the hearing of your complainer, it's harassment. (Of course, in the second example, you would probably want to be certain that the descriptions didn't cross the line.)
"My supervisor is retaliating against me." Oh, there's a lot of fun that can be had with this one. Retaliation is probably one of the least understood employment law concepts, and employees can stretch this to no end. I'm not kidding when I tell you that I heard someone complaining about their termination being retaliation for taking leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act — five years ago. The company waited five years to retaliate for (in this case) a six-week leave? Foxy of them, wasn't it? No kidding, an employee who has taken some form of protected leave or who has reported anything from illegal harassment to a co-worker being "mean" to them can twist the most justified disciplinary action, no matter how far removed from their leave or complaint, into a retaliatory action.
All kidding aside, it is true that these are very misunderstood concepts, and those of us who work with them daily can be both amused and exasperated by the incorrect definitions employees will sometimes use. Nonetheless, they are serious charges and we need to take them seriously. While (hopefully) many of them will prove to be unfounded, we can't afford to take the chance that they're not. An employee who reports what they perceive as illegal conduct deserves to be taken at their word until an impartial investigation proves otherwise. Even if you're hard pressed to keep from laughing as you do!
Catherine Bannon is an HR consultant in Marshfield, MA (catherine.bannon@gmail.com). Bannon worked for 10 years in HR management before starting her consulting practice.
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