As more and more young dental professionals are opening their own practices, many of their staff members are just about the same age as the doctors. This presents a particular set of circumstances where intended humor or camaraderie can unintentionally step over the line into something much more serious. While we know our younger clients have no corner on the market when it comes to inappropriate humor, there is sometimes too much of a comfort level when the doctor/office manager and staff are very close in age. Because workplace harassment suits are becoming so commonplace, it’s always much better to err on the side of caution. Here are some made up, but easily possible, examples where doctors and office managers might cross the line without ever realizing they were being inappropriate:
• A doctor is going to do an exam for a young staff member who is very nervous. As she walks into the room, he tries to relax her with a joke……he says, “first take off all you clothes.” She is terribly embarrassed and mentions the matter to her office manager who just blows it off as doctor’s odd sense of humor. The office manager never bothers to mention it to the doctor and the staff member quits the next week.
• An office manager is so comfortable with her staff (and so effusive a person) that she frequently hugs them to congratulate them on a job well done…..it’s a unilateral gesture, but is making one particular male staff member extremely uncomfortable……he just doesn’t want to tell anyone because he fears losing his job. He is eventually the first let go as the practice numbers have declined and fewer employees are needed.
• A doctor takes the staff out for a nice dinner, and after a glass of wine or two makes what she thinks is an amusing reference to the treatment coordinator’s weight watcher classes, and the TC snaps back a retort as she doesn’t find the comments particularly funny. The doctor had absolutely no thought that she was saying anything wrong, she just got too relaxed and said something too personal. She later has to let this staff member go, because her work has slacked due to time spent on excessive early afternoon meetings and exercise classes, and just isn’t up to office standards anymore.
• A new start doctor takes his business manager out to dinner once a week. He considers it a great way to get caught up on practice business and get dinner out of the way….unfortunately for him, his staff member thinks much more is going on than just dinner. When he gets too busy for these dinners, she quits in a bit of a huff with no explanation.
• A doctor is having some fun banter with a favorite staff member that wanders a bit into blue humor. The doctor’s wife comes in as this is happening and later insists the doctor “be strictly professional” in his dealings with all staff members. The staff member now feels she’s being treated poorly in the office, as the doctor rarely interacts with her, to avoid any possible conflict or misunderstanding with his wife.
In all of the above cases, the staff member could very likely find an attorney willing to help her/him sue for workplace harassment. We’re not attorneys, so we couldn’t even guess the legal outcome of these potential cases, but we are absolutely sure of the damage they would do to the practitioner and his/her reputation. In our current litigious society, it’s easy enough to get sued even when you’re doing everything right…..so don’t open your practice and your reputation up to potential damage by not thinking before you speak. It wouldn’t be the first time this happened and, sadly, it won’t be the last.
