Hostile Work Environment
To constitute a hostile work environment, the behavior must discriminate against a protected group of people.
That includes conduct based on race, color, religion, gender, pregnancy, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information.
A common misconception is that a hostile work environment is a place that is generally unpleasant. While a bad boss may contribute to a poor workplace, a lack of perks is inconvenient and a loud coworker is obnoxious, they don’t constitute a hostile work environment.
For a work environment to be illegally hostile, it needs to go beyond minor inconveniences, casual joking, and general rudeness. For a place of employment to become a hostile work environment, there needs to be pervasive and continuing behavior and/or policies that may impede someone’s ability to perform their job because of the level of hostility and discomfort.
Examples of a hostile work environment:
- Using slurs or insensitive terms.
- Offensive, sexual, racist, or otherwise inappropriate joking.
- Discussion of sexual activities, even if it’s not related to the people in the conversation.
- Comments about the physical appearance of others.