The pandemic has changed the way work is done. Primarily the fact that so many people ended up working remotely. One thing that surprisingly hasn’t changed is the fact that there is still discrimination and harassment in the workplace even when the workplace is virtual.
Workers are more closely monitored when they are working remotely and there are many opportunities for them to feel under immense pressure from afar.
Many are often harassed and there has been no shortage of inappropriate discussions that happen as a result of people not sitting face to face in an office. As a result, employment lawyers have been busy in this new environment. In this article, we will go over how working remotely still involves harassment and discrimination.
Wrongful termination
Although there is no doubt that Covid-19 affected the bottom line of many companies, there has been an effort to use it as an excuse to purge employees. It has been very convenient to simply say that they have to let some people go because of budget constraints. What is usually telling when this happens is that there is not a series of layoffs, but only certain people are let go.
This is how you know that these specific people were targeted and fired for discriminatory reasons. It used to be that managers would get rid of people of color, LGBT, or other minorities under the pretense that they didn’t fit into the “company culture”.
When there are layoffs because of budgetary concerns, it is usually the women that have children at home that bear the brunt of them. Often, the male workers are exempt. This is because during the pandemic, it was up to the mothers to take care of the children that were home from school during quarantine. Many companies decided that it was inconvenient for them to have women working there that had school aged children.
Hostile work environment
Many people assume that it is harder to have a toxic work environment when people are working remotely. The opposite is usually true since it is easier for many people to let their true discriminatory ideas be known since they don’t have to say things face to face.
The one big difference is that the hostile workplace that is remote makes it much easier to prove since there is a digital footprint that comes along with it. Since comments and behavior can’t be done without leaving some kind of a trace as would happen in person, employees now can take claims to a lawyer or agency with more proof. Many comments that are derogatory or sexual in nature are done in comments or on video that is often recorded.
Managers need to monitor
It isn’t always that the harassment comes from the company higher ups. Often it is a coworker that is harassing. Employers are still obligated by law to ensure that a workplace does not end up toxic even when it is remote.
This means that they have to be active in monitoring the situation and taking action at the first sign of harassment.