Only Human
By Betsey Nash, SPHR

Here we go again! It is an odd-numbered year, so I am getting my panties all in a knot.
Happens every two years, when I conduct “Sexual Harassment Prevention Training” for supervisors in businesses with more than 50 employees. Part of my preparation is researching the newest, best examples, of harassment that I can find.
Esoteric, theoretical stories are not nearly as effective as the real ones I can find. This year I could have waded through the 89,000 discrimination cases in 2014, and that’s just what was filed at the federal level; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
I am sure I would have found hours of fun going through the cases filed at the State’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
I said “fun,” but I was lying. This time every two years the fly on my office wall puts on his itsy-bitsy Bose headphones, so as to drown out my cries of  “Moron!” and “Are you #^&*! kidding me!?!” And endless verses of “When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?”
Those 89,000 claims of discrimination were not handled at the company level, meaning somebody felt so wronged and unheard that they took the time to go through the bureaucratic hoops required to file with the feds.
There mere 31,000 claims about race; 38,000 for retaliation; and 26,000 were about sexual and/or pregnancy discrimination. I just keep thinking we’re going to get over this.
Thankfully, I have new material to teach this year, and didn’t have to spend as much time as usual on sexual harassment. This year we have to teach about “abusive conduct in the workplace,” as well as the rest.
So I had to go no further than Academy Award-nominated film, “Whiplash” for my examples of inexcusable conduct. Yes, your schoolyard bully has grown up and, who would have thought it? He’s a band teacher! The sociologist in me loved this film, the daughter of a music teacher cringed. A lot.
Although we’re talking about what’s commonly called “bullying” here, the word does not appear in the law (AB2053) that mandated the training; the thought being and I think rightly, that the issue is more than just what we conjure up when we picture a bully.
Nor is there any legal recourse for someone to bring a claim of abuse in the workplace. It’s like your company can have a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for a year or so before penalties are assigned. You’ve been warned: learn to be respectful or you’ll pay down the line.
Abusive conduct is defined as “malicious, hostile, offensive behavior (action or words), intending to be intimidating and/or humiliating, and unrelated to legitimate business interests.” (If you want to humiliate an employee for a legitimate business reason, it’s OK? I doubt it, but that’s the language.)
The terms hostile and offensive should sound familiar to anyone who has had the sexual harassment prevention training before, but, unlike sexual harassment, in this case intention does matter.
I can’t wait to hear someone defend his abusive diatribe by saying (as we so often hear in discrimination cases), “I didn’t mean anything by it.” Yeah, right.
Nevertheless, the training is required, and I am all for whatever helps to make the workplace a happier place to be. I enjoy teaching these classes, but I wouldn’t mind finding something else to do other than unwind my panties.

Betsey Nash, SPHR, owner of, NASH HR SERVICES, is past president of the HR Association of the Central Coast and has been conducting employee training for more than 20 years. She can be reached at: . Only Human is a regular feature of Tolosa Press.