Here’s one thing HR doesn’t need managers to be doing with their cell phones:

Sexually harassing their subordinates through text messages.

That’s the problem a recruiting firm in Ireland is dealing with. An employee of the company received a sexually explicit text message from her boss at two o’clock one morning. He denies sending it, claiming a friend used his phone that night without telling him.

The company must’ve bought his story, because he was never disciplined. But a judge didn’t believe him, and made the company pay the woman the equivalent of about $50,000.

New tools, same rules

What’s the lesson for HR? Though the methods of harassment have changed, the ways of dealing with it have stayed pretty much the same. The court (like one in America likely would have) mentioned that a better investigation and a more effective complaint procedure would have kept the company out of trouble.

Tags: cell phones, sexual harassment, text messages