You deserve to be safe at work, free from harassment and discrimination. Yet, all too often employers fail to protect their employees, leaving their workers fearful, anxious and intimidated. When this happens, you can be put at risk of an adverse employment decision based on harassment, discrimination or retaliation, which can impact nearly every aspect of your life. A hostile work environment, if improperly handled, can leave you without a job and much needed income, a ruined career and emotional harm.
Fortunately, you can take legal action to protect yourself from these damaging outcomes. To be successful, though, you’ll have to present evidence that you’ve truly been subjected to a hostile work environment. But how do you prove that? Let’s take a closer look so that you have a better idea of how to build your case.
Tips for building a hostile work environment case
To successfully prove a hostile work environment, you have to show that the discriminatory, harassing or retaliatory behavior to which you’ve been subjected is severe and pervasive, and that it creates an intimidating or hostile environment that could lead to some sort of emotional or psychological harm. These are subjective determinations that can be difficult to prove, which is why it’s critical that you know how to gather evidence that convinces a judge or jury of what you’ve alleged. Here are some tips for doing that:
- Present evidence that derogatory comments and insults were common in your place of work, which may be demonstrated by your testimony as well as the testimony of your co-workers. To bolster your case, you should demonstrate how these comments were tied to your presence in a protected class, such as gender, race, religion or ethnicity.
- Show that you’ve been subjected to threats or unwanted advances, which may have occurred face-to-face or in written format. In the latter case, you’ll want to retain communications that you had with the harasser or discriminator as well as your employer’s response to any complaints that you levied.
- Highlight how retaliatory action was taken against you after making a complaint about harassment or discrimination, which might be proven through testimony or your employer’s own written communications.
- Demonstrate how you’ve been subjected to unfair poor performance appraisals without justification.
- Show how your employer has kept information from you that prevents you from fulfilling your job duties appropriately.
Proving some of these issues can be challenging to do. Here are some ways to ensure that you capture the evidence needed to support your claim:
- Document all interactions that may be indicative of a hostile work environment.
- Be sure to report all problematic behavior to your employer so that you create a record of your complaints as well as our employer’s response.
- Talk to any individuals who may have witnessed discrimination, harassment or retaliation while being sure to secure their contact information.
- Gain access to your personnel file.
- Review your employer’s policies so that you can more easily specify how they’ve been violated.
Don’t leave your hostile work environment case to chance
A hostile work environment can be detrimental to your career and your mental health. But you shouldn’t let it define you. Instead, take control of your case and your future by diligently gathering evidence that supports your hostile work environment claim. Hopefully then you’ll be able to find accountability and recover compensation for any harm that’s been caused to you.