Another thought: your community should play a big part in setting your cultural norms, otherwise you're going to find yourself "enforcing" cultural norms a lot.
Sexual harassment is NEVER okay, but peoples tolerances for jokes and language vary pretty wide. There's an important element of "comfort being yourself, so long as yourself is not a jerk" that helps communities stay tight. The tricky part is how you deal with the occasional jerk. Which leads me to a question I should have asked before: is your question based on an actual occurrence or more of a concern? -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org coworking in philadelphia On Tuesday, July 31, 2012 at 9:22 AM, Alex Hillman wrote: > Mutual trust and respect are top priority in any community, never mind the > coworking part. > > Sexual harassment undermines both. > > Further, Coworking spaces are a place that people choose to go, full of > people they choose to be around. That sets the bar pretty high. > > Handling this takes two main considerations: > 1) As you point out, these aren't your employees. Which means they aren't > yours to save from each other. Have members brought the problem to your > attention? I so, have they first brought their discomfort to the attention of > the person making them uncomfortable? What was the response? > > We strongly urge our members to take on a more active role in conflict > resolution for themselves (with our coaching, sometimes). If it can't be > resolved that way (which hasn't actually happened yet), I'd take on a > mediation role myself. Finally, our membership agreement allows us to > terminate membership for a couple of reasons, and disrespect of other members > and their belongings is at the top of the list. > > Again, more of a safeguard than something we've had to use. In 5 years and > thousands of people if had to ask 2 people to leave. One was a thief and the > other was mentally ill. Both were complicated and the situation sucked but we > took care of it quickly so it was also over quickly. > > 2) How can you set expectations early? On our drop-in welcome sheet we have > things like the wifi password and local restaurant recommendations but big > and bold we have 3 "house rules" that are borrowed from another space (I > honestly can't remember where at the moment, apologies to the author): > > > 1. Look after yourself. > > > 2. Look after each other. > > > 3. Look after this place. > > > This reminder gets a lot of comments *later* in membership, from people who > refer to it as the first sign of how to interact at IndyHall. > > Bottom line: > > It's up to you to help your members feel safe and happy. Part of that is > helping them help themselves. > > Also, good people tend to attract more good people and one rotten apple > spoils the batch sidewalk with problems EARLY and COMPLETELY. > > -Alex > > -- > /ah > indyhall.org > coworking in philadelphia > > > On Tuesday, July 31, 2012 at 9:05 AM, Harold Maduro wrote: > > > Hello guys. > > > > Just wanted to ask you if you have had any experience dealing with sexual > > harassment inside your coworking spaces and how do you deal with that, > > since the members are not your employees, as in a regular working > > environment. > > > > Situations like lewd comments or conversation in the space, NSFW jokes and > > rude comments with sexual connotation directed to other members. > > > > > > Thanks! > > > > > > H > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "Coworking" group. > > To view this discussion on the web visit > > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/coworking/-/np0LBUZVwuEJ. > > To post to this group, send email to coworking@googlegroups.com. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > > For more options, visit this group at > > http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to coworking@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en.