Sexual harassment complaint conundrum and complaints about the consequences

[Mihalik]

TLDR Relationship between 2 people at the office went sour, now everything is tense, there have been complaints thrown around. I NEED HIM, so I CAN'T fire HIM and while I don't NEED HER, I'm not comfortable with punishing her for something that is not her fault, and I would be setting myself up to a lawsuit. What the fuck to do now?


So it ha finally happened.

I'll provide some context first; So I run a small business, we are 12 people full time in the office with 3 others who while being full time employees are only working within the office 2 days a week, the rest they spend in the field. The ages of all employees are relatively similar, ranging from 24 to 30ish, with one outlier being our 38 year old Technical director/Operations manager. Among those working in the office full time, we have more female employees than male ones.

In the 3 years since we've been around I've never had any sexual harassment complaints to handle (I handle most our Human Resources related affairs, as we aren't big enough to warrant the need for a separate department). I never explicitly put in place any rules regarding workplace relationships, nor have I ever implemented a dress code. I always tried to cultivate a business casual and horizontal organisation culture. As long as nobody acted in a way that would be unprofessional, I tried to give everyone as much autonomy and self direction as possible in all areas.

So, a couple of months back I found out that one of our 25 year old female employees handling logistics began a relationship with our 38 year old recently divorced Technical Director. Our Technical Director has been with us since month 2 of the existence of our business, he is reliable, brilliant, hard working, and brought the experience that was KEY in our success as a company. I've always drawn on his experience and skill. While our Logistics Desk joined our company in the latest wave of expansion about 6 months ago. She is smart, patient, good at her job, occasionally has a penchant for panicking if faced with things she couldn't handle (few and far between). I was unaware that they were seeing each other, until they 'fessed up at an afterwork wine tasting to which we went as a group (we have regular social outings and things like that as a company). While I was immediately worried what would happen if they broke up (considering that one of them was RECENTLY divorced, I figured this might be a rebound fling that could go sour), I put a positive spin on it, considering they were already dating and that I had no rules expressly forbidding it, I didn't feel like I was in a position to disapprove.

Well that lasted about 3 weeks, and then they OF COURSE broke up. The age difference, the ex-wife and the 17 and 16 year old kids of our Technical Director proved to be too much for our Logistics Desk.

And this was the point where the problems began. After about a week of awkward silences, avoiding interaction (hard to fucking do considering that the Logistics Desk was created to help our Technical Director handle our expanding operations), idiotic gossip in the office and such, HE went bitter and became bossy and borderline unpleasant with her. I wanted to get ahead of the problem and I called him out on his behavior privately. He complained, I was sympathetic, I understood that she broke his heart and all that, but I pointed out that relationships fail, he chose to date her, and just because it went sour I still expected him to behave professionally.

And that seemed to be the end of it. Until this week. Logistics Desk has ALWAYS had a penchant for DEEP cleavages, but never to the point of it being indecent, tho often bordering unprofessional. While it has periodically attracted jokes from both the girls and sometimes the guys in the office, especially at social outings, it was generally always in good humor and the she was always involved in the jokes herself, and took it as a compliment (I know as I've asked in the past if she was bothered by them).

On Monday I arrived at the office in the afternoon after I was called in by our secretary (I was meeting contractors). When I arrived Technical Director was fuming at his desk and Logistics was waiting for me at my desk. Apparently at one point HE made an out of line comment about HER shirt, breasts and about how HE "missed" them, SHE apparently snapped insulted him, making some comments about HIS wife divorcing HIM due to HIS lack of "skill" in the sack. SHE wanted to file a harassment complaint. Which is regulated by Spanish Law and to which I am obliged by LAW to react to.

Considering that his comments were out of line (tho while understand he is still frustrated and all that) and that her reply was also out of line, I sent HIM home for the day and suspended pay for 3 days. I also gave her a written warning concerning professional behavior. Also after talking it over with my partner, yesterday I implemented a new dress code (something I really didn't wanna do until this point), JUST TO FUCKING AVOID FUTURE SHIT. The dress code really bothers me, as I'm against it on principle.

Today our Technical Director is back at his desk, the office is tense as fuck, and I'm frankly at loss regarding what to do.

I can't reassign HER as I would have nothing else to give her to do, I CAN'T FIRE HIM, because I NEED HIM (he is one of my greatest assets), I can't fire her because I have no grounds for it, nor would I be comfortable punishing her for something that is not fully her fault.

I've also received private texts from other girls in the office complaining about the dress code, and about being "punished" for something that is not their fault. (The dress code is NOT restrictive and is basically a copy/paste from ING Bank's dress code.)

So now everything is tense, and I have no idea what to do. I understand that I carry much of the responsibility. I should've put in place rules regarding workplace relationships and I should've had a dress code from day one.