When a Florida workplace environment prevents an employee from effectively doing their job, it can be considered a hostile work environment. A hostile work environment can be created by supervisors or even entry-level employees who have a negative impact on another employee’s ability to do their work effectively. Fortunately, there are many laws that help to protect employees from hostile work environments.
When is a workplace deemed hostile?
Just because you have an annoying co-worker that likes to ask a lot of questions or one that likes to chew their food loudly, it doesn’t constitute a hostile work environment. In fact, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) requires three elements to be present to deem a workplace as hostile. It’s vital to ensure that these three elements are present at your place of work before calling in authorities to remedy the situation.
Requirements for determining a hostile work environment
The first requirement is that there must be some sort of harassment or unwelcome conduct based on a person’s race, pregnancy, national origin, age, disability, genetics or even religion. What are the most common types of unwelcomed contact is sexual harassment.
The second requirement is that the harassment must be long-lasting. A workplace is not deemed hostile if one incident of harassment occurred. The third and final requirement that must be met to deem a workplace as hostile is that the conduct must be severe enough that it’s intimidating, abusive or offensive to those in the workplace environment. If all three of these requirements are met, your workplace can be deemed hostile under the law.
The United States government has enacted laws to help protect employees from having to work in a hostile environment. Unfortunately, sometimes people break the law and create a hostile work environment for others. In the event that you believe you’re in a hostile work environment, it’s a good idea to contact an attorney about filing a claim with the EEOC.
