Need a perspective from Mexico
I have an employee from Mexico (whom I value greatly) that has sexually harrassed one of my married, female customers on several occasions. Now that I have been make aware of the situation, I am going to have to fire him. There are witnesses, I know it is true and even a hint of harrassment is inappropriate in my business environment. His work is wonderful, I consider him to be a friend, and I am heartbroken. I can't understand why someone would jeopardize his job in this way. Is this a cultural thing? Is there something I should know before I confront him? Please help. My Spanishdict community is the only place I can go for help on this.
4 Answers
MLucie:
Your question is not trivial, and it shows a great deal of cultural sensitivity, which I appreciate.
It is true that in Latin America, a lot of behaviors that might get someone severely reprimanded, if not outright fired from a corporate environment, are tolerated and nobody pays much attention to them. This includes off-color comments, personal comments about someone's looks, and certain kinds of flirty and sexually charged remarks. Oftentimes, for a newly arrived Latino, the US work environment appears stifling, boring and incomprehensibly restrictive, like: "what do you mean I can't tell Mary how pretty she is today? But she is!!"
In my office in Puerto Rico, it is perfectly acceptable, and in fact expected, that I greet my female assistant every day with a kiss on the cheek and a brief hug. Such a think was not allowed in my work in the US.
Furthermore, in Latin America, women give as good as they take - because that's really the only effective way they have to deal with it.
Certain things, however, are not acceptable - such as touching beyond what I already described, or anything that makes a person feel frightened or really uncomfortable, where she asks to stop. Not stopping is definitely stepping way over the line.
Unfortunately, the Latin American work environment tends to be a lot less protective, so a lot of abuse does take place, particularly where senior and management staff abuses junior staff, with the threat of getting them fired.
I say all this not as an excuse, but as background for an understanding on how to handle situations like this in the future. What you describe seems to me like unacceptable behavior anywhere in the world. When it got to the point of touching, and the woman feeling threatened, it went well beyond anything that is tolerated in any responsible corporate environment in Latin America.
Your male employee should never have touched the woman. The female employee should have reported the man as soon as she started to feel uncomfortable.
Clearly the situation got far past that point, and you really do not have an option but to fire the male employee, friend or no friend. As you clearly stated, not firing him will result in serious damage to your company, and will threaten your own position of leadership, as the other employees will feel that you have not acted to protect their best interests.
I suggest that after this episode, you run a Sexual Harassment workshop so that employees know, on one hand, how to act and whom to tell in case they're harassed, and the other hand, what sorts of behaviors are not acceptable and subject to disciplinary action.
Good luck!
Well, I'm mexican and as we say here: el acoso sexual (you can change this part if you want to use it with other example) es igual aquí y en china.
Is this a cultural thing?
Auch, I couldn't be more offended, how come "sexual harassment" could be "a cultural thing", if someone kills, hits, offends or or sexually harasses other person, he has to be seen with the same eyes no matter where he is.
So in my opinion you should fire him, of course have a couple of guys behind you when you do it, who knows how disturbed he is.
Perhaps people could respond better if you give a specific example of the employee's "unacceptable" behavior. I'm also wondering: Since it happened on several occasions, did anyone try to explain the cultural rules to him before it came to this point? At my workplace, there is a procedure in place that involves specific steps such a conversations and warnings before it would come to firing someone.
I don't want to go into specific details but I can tell you that the woman tried to "handle it herself" by telling him not to touch her. Unfortunately, he was not deterred and the situation escalated. By the time I was informed, things were out of hand. The bottom line is that she does not feel safe nor will other women that she talks to. That in itself is enough to destroy the business. I don't want to fire him, and wouldn't if I could find any alternative. Maybe that's why I'm asking for advice and perspective.
