Harassment in the workplace is not acceptable. Young girls do not deserve to get belittled just for doing their jobs. Situation where a young girl is doing what she is told to do by her managers then getting harassed by customers will not be good for her mental health or for the business.
In my personal experience, I have been harassed by plenty of customers at my place of work. I have gotten screamed at for not making the cones big enough when I have to weigh each one and it must be the correct weight for consistency. I have gotten yelled at for also taking to long while making the product, which is unfair because when I am behind the counter I am in charge, so I am trying to make product but also teaching new workers how to make the product along with making sure they are doing everything correctly. Getting yelled at for taking to long gets very frustrating. I wish I would be able to turn around and say something along the lines of please be patient. Instead, I have to just smile and try to keep everything moving smoothly.
It is also very bad for the business when other people in line are seeing customers yelling at younger girls because they are impatient. This situation will make others inline not want to come back to the store. This also will make these girls quit because they are constantly getting mistreated at while doing their best, or they get fired for talking back to the customer and then the customer will call and complain because they were not treated with respect. Telling the managers at our store does not help much because they are not there all the time.
Some things we as a company can do to make our business better is holding trainings and meetings with our managers. The managers should also offer open communication between themselves and the employees, so they feel safe enough to come to talk and if necessary, file a report. The training should consist of zero-tolerance training along with the recognition of harassment training. This will ensure the safety of all employees along with the safety of other customers. Around 58% of women who are being verbally or sexually harassed at work do not file a complaint. The Zero Tolerance Policy will ensure that we are following their instructions as to how to deal with these rude customers. Being able to recognize what harassment is will make knowing what to do a lot easier. There is a difference between a one-time altercation and getting harassed. A one-time altercation is just as bad but when someone comes in multiple times looking to start unwelcoming behavior is when serious repercussions need to be put in place such as calling the police or banning them from the establishment. Holding meetings will also give the employees time to be able to share their sides of the stories when these situations happen because the managers might not be there to see exactly what happened. Setting up a date once a month where you can have all employees come in and talk face-to-face with them will make the work environment more safe and secure
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On the other side of the situation, we do have to abide by the customer and make sure our customer service is consistent because we want everyone to be able to come to our ice cream store and be able to enjoy our products. We have to follow the rule that the Customer is always right. This means no matter what is correct for us the employee has to abide by what the customer wants. Along with making sure every customer is happy and not feeling rushed or taken advantage of while visiting your store. This will lead to a happier customer experience and could lead to them visiting again and bringing more customers by giving us praise by word of mouth or over social media for how we treat our customers. This is difficult because a young girl getting yelled at is extremely hard. You're going to want to stand up for yourself and make sure they understand why something looks smaller than what they ordered or why something is taking so long but all we are allowed to say is I’m sorry, and then turn around and make their item top priority and give them a coupon to make sure they are satisfied with our store. This is hard to deal with and understand because we are praising these customers for harassing us by giving them a reason to come back and get free ice cream.
Harassment in the workplace is a reoccurring issue that is hard to deal with, but with the solution of having meetings and training on how to deal with the situation will make the problem lessen. Also, having an open relationship between management to employees and being able to have conversations about situations will make the job more enjoyable and bring the morale of your employees up. This will make for a safe and healthy work environment for the workers and the customers.
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