NCJ Number
162509
Date Published
1996
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This chapter presents a comprehensive, general model of estimating the organizational costs of sexual harassment in the workplace, along with specific costing formulas associated with the model.
Abstract
Several studies have attempted to compute the organizational costs of sexual harassment at work, in both the private and public sectors. The studies, however, included only a subset of the total possible costs of sexual harassment, and none of the studies has developed an underlying model or conceptual framework with which the cost of sexual harassment may be determined across many organizational settings. The proposed behavioral costing model of sexual harassment focuses on those employee behaviors that have an economic impact on the organization. The model is framed in terms of three broad categories of costs: productivity- related costs, administrative costs, and other costs. The aggregate of the various costs described in the chapter represents the total annual cost of sexual harassment to an organization. Based on the costing model presented, the following formula may be used to estimate the total annual cost of sexual harassment in an organization's workplace: SH = P + I + A + S + R + T + O. SH is the total annual cost of sexual harassment; P is the total annual productivity-reduction costs; I is the total annual incident costs; A is the total annual absenteeism costs; S is the total annual separation costs; R is the total annual replacement costs; T is the total annual transfer costs; and O is the total annual "other" costs. 1 figure and 37 references