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 
> > 
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