Sexual harassment at work: records, complaints, inquiries and the parties’ rights

Seeking help after sexual harassment at work may involve concerns about exposure, the next encounter with the person involved and the effect on income. Practical questions sit alongside personal ones: what to preserve, whom to approach, what an inquiry involves and whether a police complaint must come first.

You can begin by understanding the options without prejudging which facts will be established or the outcome. Israeli law distinguishes categories of conduct, regulates employer duties and recognises different routes. The choice should consider protection during employment, both parties’ rights and applicable deadlines.

What constitutes sexual harassment under Israeli law?

Repetition is not required for every category

The Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law defines several categories. These include extortion involving a demand for a sexual act, indecent acts as defined by law, repeated sexual propositions and repeated references focusing on a person’s sexuality, under the specified conditions.

A separate category concerns a degrading or humiliating reference directed at someone concerning their sex or sexuality, including sexual orientation. One reference may suffice if its elements are satisfied. Accordingly, the absence of contact or a single occurrence does not end the assessment. Equally, not every unpleasant or crude remark necessarily meets the definition.

The Law also covers non-consensual publication of a photograph, film or recording focusing on a person’s sexuality in circumstances in which publication may humiliate or degrade them, subject to statutory conditions and defences. Preserve publication details lawfully without redistributing the material. Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law, Section 3

Authority, influence and indicating disinterest

For the repeated-proposition and repeated-reference categories, indicating disinterest forms part of the ordinary assessment. Where authority is exploited in employment, Section 3(a)(6)(c)’s exception removes that requirement for those categories. It does not mean every relationship with a manager necessarily constitutes harassment or that every other statutory element disappears.

Case law also distinguishes authority from professional or status-based influence. The 2022 Anonymous judgment explained that influence may lower the evidential threshold for showing disinterest, while not eliminating it as the authority exception does. Actual power and the relationship as a whole matter beyond the organisation chart. Labor Appeal 35999-10-21, paragraphs 53–64

What to preserve before seeking help

Prepare an account by incident: date or period, place, words or acts, people present and what followed. Say when a date is uncertain. Separate exact quotation, recollection and information supplied by another person.

Retain original messages and files with their context and dates, earlier approaches, responses and potential witnesses’ names. Screenshots may help, but also preserve any original lawfully held. Do not alter files, coordinate accounts or access someone else’s device or account.

Even without another witness to the incident, an account, correspondence and surrounding conduct have value. Difficulty or delay in reporting does not by itself determine that an allegation lacks credibility; evidence is assessed sensitively in context without dispensing with proof. Recordings, photographs and medical information require separate consideration of law and privacy. This is not blanket permission to collect or publish information.

Whom should a workplace complaint be directed to?

The regulated route is the workplace sexual-harassment officer. The Regulations allow written or oral complaints by the affected person or someone acting on their behalf. Oral complaints should be recorded under the regulatory rules, including signature and provision of a copy. Ensure that you retain a clear record of submission.

Where the officer has a personal interest, is the subject of the complaint or cannot otherwise handle it, an alternative must be arranged under the Regulations. The officer’s role is a fair inquiry, rather than acting as either party’s personal lawyer. An external appointment is possible within the legal framework, but this does not mean the firm offers an external investigation service.

A prior police complaint is not a condition of the internal complaint. Information reaching the employer without a formal complaint may also require referral for inquiry. Withdrawal does not necessarily end the inquiry; the incident and reasons for withdrawal must be examined as far as possible. Employer-duty Regulations, Regulations 4–6

How should the inquiry be conducted?

Hearing the parties and protecting privacy

The officer must hear the complainant, the respondent and witnesses, and examine information concerning the complaint. The inquiry should proceed efficiently and without delay, without a personal conflict on the investigator’s part and with maximum protection of the participants’ dignity and privacy.

Privacy does not promise absolute anonymity. Information may need disclosure for the inquiry or under law. Concerns about exposure can be raised and the handling arrangements explained; nobody should promise that the respondent will not learn the allegation or that no witness will need to be contacted.

Protection during employment

Under the Regulations, the employer must protect the complainant against adverse treatment in employment because of the complaint and against interference with the inquiry. Separation may be appropriate, but its form, the possibility of moving the respondent so far as possible and appropriate, and actual effects on the complainant’s terms require assessment. Moving the complainant is not automatically a proper solution.

Explain a specific need in writing, such as concern about contact or changed shifts. Interim measures are not a final finding of responsibility, and the respondent is entitled to a substantive inquiry and the opportunity to give an account. Accurate records and a reasoned decision serve both parties.

The inquiry summary and employer’s decision

At the inquiry’s conclusion, the officer provides the employer with a written summary and reasoned recommendations without delay. Regulation 7 requires the employer to decide without delay and within seven working days after receiving the summary and recommendations, within the regulatory framework. It is not a seven-day deadline for completing the entire inquiry from its beginning.

The decision may involve measures to prevent recurrence and remedy harm, disciplinary proceedings under the applicable arrangement, or no action, according to the findings. A reasoned written notice must be provided to the complainant, respondent and officer, and both parties must be allowed to inspect the officer’s summary and recommendations. This does not confer unrestricted access to every document or personal detail in the file.

Regulation 7(d) provides for changing a decision or postponing its implementation because of related disciplinary or legal proceedings, and for deferring an inquiry under its conditions. Appropriate decision-making and reasons are required; relevant protective duties continue. Parallel proceedings do not automatically excuse inaction. Regulations 6–7

Employer liability is not limited to the complaint’s outcome

Assessment considers prevention, inquiry, records and response, alongside the Law’s liability conditions. Having rules or appointing an officer does not alone establish compliance. Rejection of a particular allegation does not by itself answer whether the inquiry was properly conducted.

The Anonymous judgment considered failures involving hearing relevant people, examining information, documenting the process and giving a written decision. It illustrates why assessment of the conduct and assessment of the employer’s response are separate questions; it does not establish a fixed compensation amount for every defect. Original judgment, paragraphs 127–132 and 142

Internal, civil and criminal routes

The internal inquiry addresses the workplace and applicable arrangements. A civil claim concerns the appropriate cause of action and relief, while a police complaint concerns suspicion of an offence. Routes may coexist, but outcomes, evidential burdens and powers differ. Not all improper conduct necessarily amounts to a criminal offence, and a prior criminal judgment is not required for every civil assessment.

Labor Court jurisdiction for relevant claims is determined by the Law, parties and connection with work; it does not extend automatically to every incident outside that framework. Compensation, corrective measures or an order depend on the claim and circumstances. Deadlines require route-specific assessment, including the difference between limitation and a condition in a special evidential provision. Do not assume internal handling automatically preserves a claim deadline.

If adverse treatment begins after reporting

Preserve what changed after the complaint: shifts, role, professional treatment or messages. Connection with harassment or the complaint forms part of the retaliation assessment, which differs from assessing the original conduct. An unproven complaint is not automatically a false one; protection does not confer immunity from lawful professional decisions. The retaliation and bullying article explains the distinctions.

An initial approach to Menahemov Shpigel & Co. can be a short account of the situation, procedural stage and any date needing attention. Identify the parties for conflict checking without initially sending intimate material through an unagreed channel. Suitability and the scope of handling will be determined separately. Return to the service page.