Comment by cimmanom
7 years ago
Your much more likely to have somewhere to reassign the lower level employee to than the higher level employee simply because there are fewer roles total at the higher level. Unless both must be reassigned, you end up punishing only the lower level employee.
It doesn’t ensure abuse is stopped. It may just expose a different set of employees to abuse. It doesn’t send a message that abuse is unacceptable or will meet with meaningful consequences. It’s only a solution to anything if the only problematic interactions are between two specific employees. If you have an employee with a boundary problem or who enjoys abusing their position or who “just can’t help themselves”, it does nothing to prevent or deter them from subjecting another report to the same unacceptable behavior. Like the molesting priests mentioned in another thread - moving them to another parish accomplishes nothing except to make it clear that they can get away with misbehavior and to expose a new set of victims to abuse.
> than the higher level employee simply because there are fewer roles total at the higher level.
Maybe at the very top - not for the majority of cases though.
> It doesn’t send a message that abuse is unacceptable or will meet with meaningful consequences.
Does sending a message that abuse is unacceptable stop abuse?
It seems to me that the only people it scares are the people who aren’t a problem in the first place.
In truth such a message seems to enable abusers although I couldn’t explain to you why.
> moving them to another parish accomplishes nothing
That might be the case when children are involved.
In a workplace context though such an approach empowers potential victims.
It empowers victims in four key ways:
1) It stops women from threatening innocent men - saying “I can make you move teams to an equivalent position” is not particularly threatening - more of a pain in the ass.
2) It limits the ability of a male manager to sexually pressure his female subordinates. Saying “you will never advance in this company unless you ...” carries a lot less weight when you can easily switch managers.
3) It empowers women to be able to voice concerns without having to worry about getting people fired.
You’d be surprised at the number of women who keep quiet about real problems because they don’t want an overzealous HR to come in and ruin people’s livelihoods.
4) It limits abuse without requiring strong evidence of abuse in a way that doesn’t result in strong backlash.