Types of Workplace Harassment

A Guide for the Board on Risk, Response, and Prevention

Harassment is a common business risk that hurts people, productivity, and the value of the brand. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) got 81,055 complaints of discrimination in fiscal year 2023 and paid workers more than $665 million. Retaliation was a common problem. It is clear to directors that just being aware is not enough. This is a problem with workplace harassment that has real effects on money, culture, and the law. Every workplace the company has needs to be watched over all the time and have clear lines of responsibility. The board wants every team and location to have a workplace that is safe and respectful.

This report talks about what harassment at work means in the U.S., the U.K., and other parts of the world. Additionally, it lists the types of workplace harassment that get the most attention and shows how digital behavior in chat, email, and video meetings is now a big part of it. It also sets reasonable expectations for how fast and well claims of workplace harassment should be handled. This includes quickly admitting fault, fairly gathering evidence, and keeping an eye on things after the case to avoid backlash.

Lastly, the report shows how workplace culture, training, and reliable reporting systems can lower claims and keep people on the job. The goal is to have a safe and respectful workplace where problems are found and fixed quickly, and where leaders deal with harassment before it gets worse.

What Does Harassment in the Workplace Mean?

Federal Law in the U.S.

According to US law, harassment at work is any unwanted behavior that has to do with things like race, color, religion, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), national origin, age, disability, or genetic information. The EEOC enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and other anti-discrimination laws. These laws say that harassment is illegal if it is bad enough or widespread enough to make the workplace hostile or if putting up with it is a condition of employment. Federal law says that harassment can happen if there are patterns or one very bad incident of harassing behavior that meets these criteria.

Some examples are slurs, threats of violence, intimidation, offensive jokes, derogatory comments, and other unwelcome conduct. In April 2024, the EEOC also put out new rules about how people should behave online. Some parts of the new rules were thrown out in 2025, though. So, US businesses need to make sure that their policies and training are up to date with the law and that all of their work spaces meet a high internal standard. Federal law says that following the rules and doing the paperwork are just as important as the rules themselves.

Equality Act in the United Kingdom

The UK uses the Equality Act to say what harassment is. This law says that any unwelcome conduct at work that is connected to protected characteristics and makes the workplace feel scary, humiliating, or creates an offensive environment is harassment. This standard says that any unwanted behavior that is linked to a protected characteristic and hurts someone’s dignity could be considered harassment.

This law applies to speech, writing, pictures, and posts made on the internet. The law is set by Section 26. Employers should think about the U.K. Use simple language in training and include local spelling, like “inappropriate behaviours,” so that it is easy to understand.

Baseline for the World

The ILO (International Labor Organization) Convention C190 talks about actions that hurt people physically, mentally, sexually, or financially, whether they happen once or many times. Now, C190 also has rules about how people should behave online. Many branches of multinational companies use C190 as their international standard, but they also have to follow local employment laws.

When two rules are in conflict, the company usually follows the stricter one and tells the people who are affected why. This helps make sure that the culture at work is the same at all branches.

Two Legal Categories You Need to Know

Quid Pro Quo Harassment

When hiring, scheduling, pay, or promotion decisions are based on sexual favors or putting up with unwanted sexual advances, this is called quid pro quo harassment. This kind of harassment is directly linked to how the company is set up, so even one incident can cause big legal problems and expensive lawsuits with serious legal consequences.

The governing board needs to make sure that all employees can easily report harassment without going through the chain of command and that the results are written down in the workplace investigation record. When employees experience harassment at work, they should also know how to properly document workplace harassment.

Hostile Work Environment

When a lot of bad behavior happens at work, or when it happens with enough force that a reasonable person would feel threatened or abused, the workplace is hostile or toxic. When deciding what to do about these incidents, the courts look at how often they happen, how serious the actions are, whether there were physical threats or unwanted physical contact, how they affect the work of coworkers, and who the victims and perpetrators are. Any offensive conduct or aggressive behavior that contributes to a toxic workplace must be addressed promptly.

Also, keep in mind that the same rules that are used to look into how people act in person will also be used to look into how they act online.

The Most Common Types of Workplace Harassment

Sexual Harassment

When someone makes unwelcome sexual advances, asks for sexual favors, or does something of a sexual nature that makes the environment abusive, that is sexual harassment. It also includes abuse based on being pregnant, being gay, or being a woman.

The EEOC received more than 7,700 sexual harassment complaints in 2023, the most in twelve years. Risk in real life can be seen in direct messages that are clear, suggestive posts in team channels, or backlash when someone turns down unwanted sexual advances. Before investigations even start, boards should try to use systems that can easily collect “time-to-first-action” data and evidence of sexual harassment. Companies should also have training programs in place to prevent sexual harassment before it happens.

Harassment Based on Race and National Origin

Using slurs, stereotypes, exclusion, inappropriate comments, derogatory comments, or degrading images based on race, color, or ethnicity can hurt culture and get you in trouble very quickly. High-profile workplace harassment cases show that people are more likely to be harassed every day if early reports are not taken seriously.

To stop racial harassment, you can do things like targeted audits, coaching managers, and making sure that corrective actions change racist behavior and any discriminatory behavior. When it is appropriate, use the word “ethnicity” in training to cut down on the number of legal terms you use while still being correct.

Religious Harassment

Making fun of someone’s beliefs or practices, forcing them to follow the rules, or not making reasonable accommodations for staff to safely practice their religion can all make the workplace illegal. Handle religious harassment at work the same way you would handle any other kind of harassment: take it seriously, look into it fairly, and set clear deadlines. Careful tracking and appeals can help keep the workplace from becoming a bad place to work or an offensive environment.

Discriminatory Harassment (Catch-All)

Someone can be the target of discriminatory harassment or discriminatory behavior because of their age, disability, or other status. There are often mixed motives behind claims, with performance notes next to slurs or other negative comments. Teach managers how to tell the difference between feedback and an attack, and how to write down all the details of any harassment incident that happens at work. This is a basic part of employment law that makes sure the workplace is safe.

Gender-Based Harassment or Gender Identity Harassment

Making fun of someone’s gender expression or sexual orientation, misgendering someone, or sex-stereotyping someone can all be forms of harassment, especially when they affect work, pay, or reviews. Using the right names and pronouns in systems, giving managers specific training, and making sure that meetings and chats have clear rules are all ways to stop gender identity harassment. These steps also help stop sexual harassment when one person has more power than the other.

Verbal Abuse or Harassment

Repeated insults, threats, inappropriate comments, offensive jokes, and offensive conduct hurt trust and results. You should handle verbal harassment at work the same way you would any other kind of harassment. Get involved early, keep an eye on what happens, and look for patterns of bullying behavior across teams. When verbal abuse turns into violence, act quickly to protect everyone at work.

Physical Harassment

If someone is engaging in aggressive behavior, physical conduct like touching you without your permission, or making threats, you should act right away. Safety rules come first because physical harassment and workplace violence often happen at the same time. Leaders should prioritize employee safety. They should check drills and access controls, and they should make sure that every harassment incident at work is looked into right away and that the steps taken are written down.

Psychological or Mental Harassment

Gaslighting, spreading rumors, and isolating people are all bad for mental health and keeping people around. This is psychological harassment that affects someone’s mental health, and it could be against the law if it is linked to a protected status. Even if the harassment is personal and not related to work, it still makes the work environment less pleasant. Pay attention to places where sick leave, complaints, and turnover all go up, and use that information to make changes. Make sure your policy clearly defines what personal harassment is so that employees know what it is and can report harassment right away.

Third Party Harassment

Customers, clients, vendors, and visitors can all be a threat, especially in places where people work. The business could be held responsible if it owns the site and does not address harassment. Make sure that reports about incidents involving outsiders are written down in the same way as reports about incidents involving employees. Use bans or contract remedies when they are needed. Do not think of this as a customer service issue; think of it as harassment at work.

Power Harassment

Abusing power can mean putting someone in a corner, asking them to do things that are not fair, or watching them too closely. When senior leaders are named, clear escalation paths and independent reviews can stop power harassment. The message is clear: being in charge does not mean you will not experience harassment at work or face retaliation harassment.

Workplace Violence

To stop threats, intimidation, aggressive behavior, and assault, you need to plan ahead and act quickly. A well-developed program has risk assessments, clear ways to move up the chain of command, and reviews after the fact. Put these systems together with reporting workplace harassment so that safety and HR can see the same data.

Other Forms of Harassment

In many cases, there is both online harassment and in-person harassment, or more than one protected status. Cases with more than one protected status need careful fact-finding and solutions that work every time. Use C190 as a guide for choices that affect more than one country, and keep track of how standards were used in each place of work.

Leaders Should Know These Clear Examples

1. If a boss suggests that a raise depends on sexual favors and then gives the employee bad shifts after they say no, that is quid pro quo harassment and retaliation harassment at work.
2. In a group chat, people might make fun of a religious tradition next to derogatory comments that are mean about an employee’s accent. When combined, these can show religious harassment and racial bias.
3. Think about a trans employee who was misgendered in meetings and spoke up, but then was taken off client calls. This pattern looks like harassment based on gender identity and retaliation harassment.
4. If a customer yells slurs at a cashier, that is third-party harassment that needs to be dealt with right away.
5. In another case, a team member who witnessed gender-based harassment reports it and then sees their hours cut. This is most likely retaliation harassment.
6. Messages sent late at night in a team channel can turn into online harassment. If someone asks for intimacy after that, it can also be sexual harassment.

How to Respond to and Report Harassment at Work

A defensible model has several ways to report harassment without going through the chain of command, such as an anonymous intake form that works on mobile devices and service-level goals like responding within 48 hours, taking safety steps as needed, and finishing the workplace investigation within a set amount of time.

Investigators should not have any biases and should know how to handle evidence and do digital forensics. Also, they should have records that show they have done effective harassment investigations and gotten the same results every time. After the case is over, monitoring should keep an eye on scheduling, pay, workload, and ratings for at least six months. This is because many workers are afraid of getting in trouble after they report harassment.

When a harassment claim brings up complicated legal issues, employees should be able to get legal counsel, legal assistance, and advice. Leaders need to explain how facts were weighed and decisions were made so that everyone at work can trust the system.

How to Create a Respectful Work Environment to Prevent Problems

When prevention is specific, tracked, and paid for, it works. Policies should make it clear that harassing behavior is not allowed and give examples of things that happen at work, like dealing with angry customers, messaging late at night, or working on projects with people from other countries. Training should be short, based on roles, and done over and over. It should include training for managers on how to step in early and bystander skills.

Reporting should be easy at any time of day, with reminders in collaboration tools and QR codes in break rooms. Leaders should check four things every three months: how long it took to take action after a report, how long the investigation took and what it found, survey results on trust and psychological safety, and patterns of repeat offenders by team.

Culture is shown by numbers. If workplace bullying costs each affected worker about $14,000 in lost productivity, even a small decrease will save money. For example, if a company has 500 employees, cutting the number of bullies by just ten percent can save hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost productivity, which is often much more than the cost of training and system upgrades. The return gets even better when a better workplace culture lowers turnover and claims.

Responsibility, Metrics, and Learning from Cases of Harassment at Work

You really keep an eye on things when you measure. Every three months, boards should get a report that shows the number of new cases, how long it took to acknowledge them, what safety measures were taken in the meantime, how long the investigation took, what the results were, and what punishment was given. Patterns are important in more than one case. Look for spikes by site, shift, or manager, and for names that appear in more than one report.

To find out if culture is getting better, watch teams that have problems and see how many people stay, move around, and miss work. Make sure that leaders check in with teams that were affected and use what they learned in training and supervision. Most charges across the country will include retaliation harassment if you do not look for it.

The company should keep an eye on the reporters’ outcomes for months after the case is closed and explain any bad changes. In the end, link some of the variable pay for executives and senior managers to measurable progress, like quicker responses, fewer repeat incidents, and higher trust scores.

Conclusion: A Call for Leadership That Takes Action

Boards should always be on the lookout for harassment and keep an eye on it. Set clear service levels for reports, respond within two days, put in place temporary safety measures when needed, and finish fair investigations on time. Make sure that all teams, whether they are on-site, remote, or a mix of the two, follow the same rules that meet or exceed local laws. Ask for quarterly dashboards that show the number of cases, how long it takes to act, the results of investigations, patterns of repeat offenders, and checks for retaliation after a case is closed.

Tell the bosses to spend money on short, role-based training, bystander skills, and easy mobile reporting so that people can get help without being scared. Part of an executive’s pay should be based on measurable improvements, like faster responses, fewer repeat incidents, higher trust scores, and lower turnover in areas where there have been problems in the past. Setting clear goals, keeping track of progress, and acting on the information help leaders keep their employees safe and improve performance over time.

FAQs for Leaders