Case Study 3: Sexual Harassment and Management Behaviour at the Workplace Author(s):

Hemaloshinee Vasudevan; Nomahaza Mahadi

CASE SCENERIO After her resignation from one institution, Nisha (pseudonym)was employed as
a lecturer at a private college of education located in Malaysia.

Nisha was a young and attractive female employee with a cute personality. Her presence can
turn heads and make everyone want to look at her. When she makes an entrance into her office,
her male and female co-workers (lecturers) often stare at her, captivated by her personality and
appearance. Nisha’s personality can be described as dynamic and structured as noted in people
who are uniquely affected by their cognition, motivation, and behaviour, in various situations. Her
work performance was good, in fact, better than her colleagues to the extent that some of her
female co-workers had even complained to the management that she was creating trouble at
work and that she was not good at her performance. This politicking activity of her co-workers
turned Nisha into a victim of the workplace to the point that the management began to take the
decision to terminate herservices. Nisha is an innocent worker who has a good attitude and work
performance but unfortunately for her, the organisation she worked for, was not on her side. This
case describes the effect of a superior’s sexual harassment and immoral behaviour towards a
female worker at the workplace. The event took place at one of the private institutions of higher
learning in Malaysia, hereby termed as college X. The female staff who joined the institution
became a threat to the other staff because she had been outstanding in her work performance.
Consequently, her male superior began developing feelings for her. In the first few weeks of her
employment, everything went well, at par to her expectations and she felt happy and contented
with everyone's interactions with her. Her working climate was really challenging for her but she
cooperated with her colleagues to get work done. She also felt that she had learnt a lot from the
new enriching experiences. After spending some time with her colleagues or, in this sense,
teammates, she began to sense an awkwardness about her male superior. She did not know what
the exact issue was but she was able to gather a vague sense of understanding after her fellow
team members began talking about the superior and making friendly warnings about his
behaviour to the rest of the team. Despite these friendly warnings, she did not try in any possible
way to get to know what the exact issue was because she did not feel the necessity to learn about
his personal characteristics or attitude. For her, it was enough and acceptable that in the working
environment, the superior behaves in a professional manner that is acceptable and suitable for
work. She also believed that the superior would have a certain degree of moral towards the other
staff. However, one day, she discovered that the superior’s communication with her did not make
sense to her. In fact, it was weird. For several days, the superior had been preying on her and
finding faults with her, calling her to his office for unnecessary communications. This made the
staff felt uncomfortable. In order to stay away from being called upon by the superior, the female
staff then used strategies to ignore this situation imposed by the superior. She occupied herself
with other tasks such as having discussions with students or having various interactions with
other lecturers. Although the female staff was very uncomfortable, she did not want to report the
situation to the management due to certain circumstances. Instead, she chose to discuss this
issue with her teammates. Unfortunately for her, the situation worsened and the management
decided to terminate the victim (female worker) and not the harasser(male perpetrator).This case
allows us to view the issuance of power. In this context, it can be seen that the superior carried
the "power to control" (quid pro quo behaviour) the female employee who was the victim. Here,
the superior who was holding a position displayed the ability to perform indecent acts against the
female worker within the organisation. In this case of sexual harassment, the victim must outline
four elements to prove the existence of a quid pro quo behaviour, namely: (1) victim, whether
male or female, was subjected to the insured, (2) victim received unwanted sexual harassment,
(3) complaints of harassment based on sex and sexual matters, and (4) complaints made by
workers who are victims which will affect the 13 | P a g e rights of an employee. In situations where
a female worker is employed under the supervision of a female superior, rarely do such issues
arise. Alternatively, there would also be no issue if the worker was a man working under a male
supervisor. Most cases of sexual harassment have noted that the “accused says he/she was
sexually abused solely based on gender”. From this statement, it can be deduced that the
organizational climate is one of the elements that can affect change in management behaviour
at the workplace. Current organizational structure suggests that most of the top management are
males. In organisations where there are competitive female colleagues, where most male
workers find it extremely difficult to accept a woman as their competitor who is ranked equally
(Farley, 1978). The occurrence where the management’s behaviour poses a problem in the
workplace is when it is related to the work employment opportunities offered to women. Today’s
world showed that more and more women are being employed in industries which used to be
dominated by men. More and more women are as capable if not more competent than some of
their male counterparts in the respective fields such as engineering, medicine, aviation,
business, law and so on. This threat can indirectly affect the status of the male workers. To
safeguard their positions, some male workers are willing to assert the practice of sexual
harassment on female workers as a way of demeaning them. Policy Implication Based on the
above scenario, it can be deduced that employees who become a victim of sexual harassment
caused by the immoral behavior of others at the workplace can address this problem to the
labour court duly. They need to convey this harassment to the management. This is because
sexual harassment is any unwanted behaviour consisting of verbal, non-verbal, visual,
psychological or physical acts on reasonable grounds, and is/are perceived by the receiver
(victim) as a condition of a sexual nature on employment, or is on reasonable grounds, perceived
by the receiver (victim) as a violation of the dignity or humiliation or threats against him/her, but
has no direct links to his/her work. As a receiver of this reception, the victim may be in a situation
where the sexual harassment is inflicted either from a man into a woman, from a man onto a man,
from woman onto a woman or from a woman onto a man. In any work policies, no officer can
perform any form of sexual harassment towards another employee or staff by approaching the
person and behaving in a sexual manner, by demanding for sexual favours from the person, by
uttering any word, make any noise or signal or indicate any article or photo so that the word or
sound heard, or the signal or object or image being viewed by the person interferes with his/her
humility and feelings. As a result of this provision, the head of the department, upon receipt of a
complaint, shall be responsible for the following: (i) receive complaints about the sexual
harassment by an officer, here, the complaints shall be classified as confidential, (ii) make official
records of all complaints received, (iii) conduct an investigation to confirm whether the matter
reported is justified or not, (iv) report the results of the investigation of sexual harassment to the
Disciplinary Committee, and (v) keep a record of all complaints received, the latest of the
complaints and a follow-up is required. As a final point, a person who is guilty of committing
sexual harassment can receive any one or a combination of any or more of the following penalties
as specified to resolve this problem: warning and disciplinary penalties in accordance with Act
605 (Act Statutory Bodies Tattertib and Surcharges, 2000).
Conclusion Sexual harassment can have a severe impact on people’s behaviour when it occurs
at the workplace. Therefore, it is necessary that organisations be more proactive such as being
more defensive for employees instead of being reactive and to be more response driven by taking
the initiatives to develop effective sexual harassment policies and procedures. Sexual
harassment can be prevented and eradicated most effectively if there is a joint effort between the
employers and labor unions. Internal mechanisms for preventing and eradicating sexual
harassment can be organised and built together. Union participation can contribute to a stronger
employee commitment into adopting and complying with the mechanism. Trade unions have a
clear role in helping to create an environment that is free from sexual harassment. Trade unions
can also contribute to the prevention of sexual harassment by raising more awareness and
sensitivity among union members. In doing so, the union is ensuring that the behavior of its union
members is being monitored and this can help to alleviate the problem of sexual harassment.