Question

What should VS do to protect itself from future Title VII sexual harassment lawsuits?

Paola Innocente lives with her husband and son in South City. She is 30 years old and an Italian immigrant. She worked in the fashion industry as a model in New York City until she met her husband and they moved to his hometown, St. Louis, in 2011. Since then she held many part-time jobs. In January of 2018, in hopes of a steady paycheck, she decided to apply for a job as Stocker at Veronica’s Secret in the Galleria. Veronica’s Secret (VS) is a leading women’s intimate apparel store headquartered in downtown St. Louis, with store locations nation-wide, employing over 500 people. VS’s employment strategy, much like another well-known St. Louis company, is for people to start at low level positions and work their way up, thus learning all aspects of the business. The Stocker position requires unpacking boxes, taking inventory, sending unused and damaged inventory back to the warehouse and giving weekly inventory reports to the Store Manager. Bello Vavoom, the 32 year old Store Manager, coincidently, a former male model, interviewed Paola for the position. In his interview notes he wrote: “Eager. Seems hard-working. Good computer skills. HOT!” Toward the end of the interview, she decided to flash him with her killer smile, known in her modeling days as her signature look, called, “Black Steel.” That was the same smile that she credited for “landing” her husband. She saw in his reaction that the smile did the job. He hired her on the spot as Stocker and she began immediately. Paola was happy to have a steady job and worked extremely hard, going above and beyond what was required of her. She hoped to get promoted through the ranks as quickly as possible. Within the Galleria store, the positions (and who held them) were: 1) Stockers (Paola and Carla); 2) Fitting Specialists (Johanna and Mary); 3) Cashiers (Sam and Phillip); and 4) Store Manager (Bello). In terms of hierarchy, Stockers are the entry position, Cashiers and Fitting Specialists are at the same level, the secondary level, and Store Manager is the highest. Promotion beyond Store Manager would be to a position in headquarters downtown. The Fitting Specialist positions are offered exclusively to women since part of their job requirement is to physically measure women’s sizes. That position’s description also requires a friendly, clientfocused demeanor and well-maintained appearance. The Cashier position is not limited to women. It requires basic knowledge of computers, a friendly, client-focused demeanor and wellmaintained appearance. The Store Manager is required to have advanced computer knowledge, strong management skills and a friendly, client-focused demeanor and well-maintained appearance. Paola quickly got the hang of her new job and was doing well and receiving good performance reviews. Bello, still blown away by Black Steel, suggested that instead of handing him the weekly inventory reports, they should meet to discuss the numbers. Paola thought this odd since he did not require the same from Carla, the other Stocker. During their weekly meetings, he insisted that they meet alone in the stock room. He would often compliment Paola’s outfits and figure, occasionally putting his hands on her arms and putting his arm behind her shoulders as they walked. In almost every meeting he suggested that they go out for wine after work. At times he made flirtatious gestures with the inventory. If she acted resistant 2 toward his flirtations or insinuate that the meetings seemed unnecessarily long, he would remind her that inventory checks are part of the job. Paola was accustomed to men making advances toward her and didn’t want to “rock the boat.” She decided to use the “laugh it off” approach, not touch him or do anything inappropriate herself, get through the meetings and hope to get promoted soon. Al Bizness, a representative from headquarters came to perform Paola’s six-month review in July of 2018. Al told Paola that all of her performance reports have been excellent and that if it continues, maybe in a year or so, she could find her way to headquarters. He then asked Paola how she was finding her time with VS. Paola, on a high from hearing such great news, imagining her corner office, responded: “great great. I’m having a lot of fun.” Al, satisfied, left and filed his report with Human Resources (HR). When Paola got back to the store she sought out Bello and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. One day in late July 2018, at the beginning of her shift, Paola encountered Carla who was finishing her shift in the stock room. Carla is also an Italian immigrant, but unlike Paola, she speaks poor English and is slovenly, lazy and generally disagreeable. She was hired the month before Paola and is extremely computer savvy. That day, Carla was very upset that her favorite motorcycle racer lost a key race and began complaining loudly to Paola in Italian. This led to a heated conversation between the two in Italian. Bello walked in and told them to quiet down because many customers were wondering what all the shouting was about. Carla walked up to Bello and made a flirtatious comment to Bello. He blushed suddenly and walked out. The next day he announced that a position of Cashier was opening up and that the Stockers have priority. That evening, during their weekly inventory meeting, Bello told Paola: “I like the idea of you as Cashier. Of course you’d be great. Best of all we can work even more closely together. And maybe finally meet up afterhours.” He then made a lewd sexual gesture and Paola, caught off guard, excused herself saying she needed to use the restroom. Bello, feeling awkward about the un-reciprocated advance, approached Paola and apologized. Paola felt bad and telling herself to “keep his eye on the prize” (i.e. promotion) bought him an Orange Mocha Frappuccino on her break. Over the next three weeks his flirtations with Paola gained in intensity. He would brush up against her in the hallway and at meetings, wink at her from across the room and require her to give him a kiss on the cheek at the end of each meeting. At the same time, Carla began acting angry toward Paola. She assumed that since Bello was always flirting with Paola, Paola would get the promotion. Fearing her Orange Mocha Frappuccino sent the wrong message and wanting to emphasize to Bello (and Carla) that she did not want to have “relations” with Bello, Paola began to physically avoid him altogether. When he walked in a room, she stayed on the other side or walked out. When he would make eye contact, she would break it. She continued to perform her job responsibilities just as before with the exception of the weekly review meeting. Since the lewd gesture incident she began printing out the weekly reports and having someone else hand them to him after she left for the day. Finally, just before Christmas, Bello hired Carla for the Cashier position. 3 From then on, Bello put Paola on all of the less desirable shifts, even over the new hire that replaced Carla. She had to work Christmas and New Year’s holidays and will have to work on Valentine’s Day. She was told that she was not allowed to speak in any language other than English while at work. Once, distracted by Philip’s sudden shriek at seeing a mouse, Paola dropped a box of robes and Bello exclaimed, “you clumsy woman.” Unhappy with her work situation, she went to HR in downtown St. Louis for help. You are the HR manager. Since the beginning of August 2018, you have received several job performance reports written by Bello citing Paola negatively for speaking Italian at work, her lack of ability to follow instructions regarding the weekly reporting, her clumsiness and her inability to be a team player. Prior to August, the reports on her were all positive. Also, you received two incident reports filed by Philip. Unbeknownst to Paola and Bello, Phillip had witnessed Bello’s lewd sexual gesture and Paola’s walking away last July, as well as the “clumsy woman” incident, and cited them both. Paola came in to see you to voice her concerns on September 5, 2018. On September 10 you called in Bello to get his side of the story. That day, when Bello got back from meeting you, he cornered Paola in the stock room, blocking her way to the door. She got scared and tried to walk around him and he stepped in front of her, blocking her again, and saying that she could not leave until they talked. She said they had nothing to talk about and tried to walk out again. This time he grabbed her arm tightly and said, “Please, we can make this right. Just relax.” At this point he started creepily massaging her shoulders. She faked relaxing and when he did not expect it, she hurried out of the door. The next day, Paola reported to you what happened in the stock room.

Answer 1

The major issue which seems to be the cause of incident is the management's inability to see through the state of affairs that gradually progressed and suddenly took an ugly turn. The victim ( Paola) not only put up with advances of her manager in the beginning, but her actions also fomented the advances and seemed to be suggestive ( planting kiss on his cheek is not a normal behaviour). She backed off when he demanded more and started retaliating. On the top of this, he acted unprofessionally and offensively when he engaged in  forceful confrontation of her, twisting her hand and touched her inappropriately.

The management could have avoided ( or can avoid future cases) if it employs following measures.

(i) Decentralising the recruitment and selection procedures and avoiding placing sole responsibility on a single person, particularly when the hiring involves roles that attract young applicants, who are more prone to sexual harassment

(ii) Increasing vigilance and multi level monitoring to ensure that no undue liberties are taken by anyone at workplace. Inappropriate behaviour by anyone, should be taken cognizance of immediately.

(iii) Creating channels of communication between employees and HR, to particularly deal with the cases which can potentially lead to sexual harassment suits.

(iv) Creating a comprehensive policy related to sexual discrimination, communicating it to all employees and enforcing it with zero tolerance.

(v) Acting swiftly on credible inputs and complaints received from the potential victims or their coworkers to prevent  escalation of situation and resulting in a lawsuit.