No preconditions: Investigate all complaints.

Courts expect you to investigate every sexual harassment complaint. That means you should never put conditions on accepting an employee's complaint for investigation.

For example, never tell a worker that you won't consider her complaint unless she can bring in co-workers to back it up. That could cause you to quickly lose a failure-to-prevent-harassment lawsuit.

Recent case: After Ciara took a job at an oil refinery, she was quickly told that "women don't last long" there. Right away she was faced with sexist comments. When she brought her complaint to...