Harassment: The 'just joking' defense is a loser.

Train your supervisors on how to respond to a potential harassment complaint. Give bosses a response script, like, "Thank you for telling me. Our company takes this seriously and I will speak with HR immediately."

Then, require managers to bring any claims immediately to HR. Discipline managers who fail to do so.

Recent case: A gay cook at a Florida restaurant faced homophobic slurs starting from Day 1. When the cook complained, his manager was told to simply ignore those problems because the co-workers were "just joking around." Nothing changed, so the cook quit after three months on...