What should VS do to protect itself from future Title VII sexualharassment lawsuits?

Paola Innocente lives with her husband and son in South City.She is 30 years old and an Italian immigrant. She worked in thefashion industry as a model in New York City until she met herhusband and they moved to his hometown, St. Louis, in 2011. Sincethen she held many part-time jobs. In January of 2018, in hopes ofa steady paycheck, she decided to apply for a job as Stocker atVeronica’s Secret in the Galleria. Veronica’s Secret (VS) is aleading women’s intimate apparel store headquartered in downtownSt. Louis, with store locations nation-wide, employing over 500people. VS’s employment strategy, much like another well-known St.Louis company, is for people to start at low level positions andwork their way up, thus learning all aspects of the business. TheStocker position requires unpacking boxes, taking inventory,sending unused and damaged inventory back to the warehouse andgiving weekly inventory reports to the Store Manager. Bello Vavoom,the 32 year old Store Manager, coincidently, a former male model,interviewed Paola for the position. In his interview notes hewrote: “Eager. Seems hard-working. Good computer skills. HOT!”Toward the end of the interview, she decided to flash him with herkiller smile, known in her modeling days as her signature look,called, “Black Steel.” That was the same smile that she creditedfor “landing” her husband. She saw in his reaction that the smiledid the job. He hired her on the spot as Stocker and she beganimmediately. Paola was happy to have a steady job and workedextremely hard, going above and beyond what was required of her.She hoped to get promoted through the ranks as quickly as possible.Within the Galleria store, the positions (and who held them) were:1) Stockers (Paola and Carla); 2) Fitting Specialists (Johanna andMary); 3) Cashiers (Sam and Phillip); and 4) Store Manager (Bello).In terms of hierarchy, Stockers are the entry position, Cashiersand Fitting Specialists are at the same level, the secondary level,and Store Manager is the highest. Promotion beyond Store Managerwould be to a position in headquarters downtown. The FittingSpecialist positions are offered exclusively to women since part oftheir job requirement is to physically measure women’s sizes. Thatposition’s description also requires a friendly, clientfocuseddemeanor and well-maintained appearance. The Cashier position isnot limited to women. It requires basic knowledge of computers, afriendly, client-focused demeanor and wellmaintained appearance.The Store Manager is required to have advanced computer knowledge,strong management skills and a friendly, client-focused demeanorand well-maintained appearance. Paola quickly got the hang of hernew job and was doing well and receiving good performance reviews.Bello, still blown away by Black Steel, suggested that instead ofhanding him the weekly inventory reports, they should meet todiscuss the numbers. Paola thought this odd since he did notrequire the same from Carla, the other Stocker. During their weeklymeetings, he insisted that they meet alone in the stock room. Hewould often compliment Paola’s outfits and figure, occasionallyputting his hands on her arms and putting his arm behind hershoulders as they walked. In almost every meeting he suggested thatthey go out for wine after work. At times he made flirtatiousgestures with the inventory. If she acted resistant 2 toward hisflirtations or insinuate that the meetings seemed unnecessarilylong, he would remind her that inventory checks are part of thejob. Paola was accustomed to men making advances toward her anddidn’t want to “rock the boat.” She decided to use the “laugh itoff” approach, not touch him or do anything inappropriate herself,get through the meetings and hope to get promoted soon. Al Bizness,a representative from headquarters came to perform Paola’ssix-month review in July of 2018. Al told Paola that all of herperformance reports have been excellent and that if it continues,maybe in a year or so, she could find her way to headquarters. Hethen asked Paola how she was finding her time with VS. Paola, on ahigh from hearing such great news, imagining her corner office,responded: “great great. I’m having a lot of fun.” Al, satisfied,left and filed his report with Human Resources (HR). When Paola gotback to the store she sought out Bello and gave him a big kiss onthe cheek. One day in late July 2018, at the beginning of hershift, Paola encountered Carla who was finishing her shift in thestock room. Carla is also an Italian immigrant, but unlike Paola,she speaks poor English and is slovenly, lazy and generallydisagreeable. She was hired the month before Paola and is extremelycomputer savvy. That day, Carla was very upset that her favoritemotorcycle racer lost a key race and began complaining loudly toPaola in Italian. This led to a heated conversation between the twoin Italian. Bello walked in and told them to quiet down becausemany customers were wondering what all the shouting was about.Carla walked up to Bello and made a flirtatious comment to Bello.He blushed suddenly and walked out. The next day he announced thata position of Cashier was opening up and that the Stockers havepriority. That evening, during their weekly inventory meeting,Bello told Paola: “I like the idea of you as Cashier. Of courseyou’d be great. Best of all we can work even more closely together.And maybe finally meet up afterhours.” He then made a lewd sexualgesture and Paola, caught off guard, excused herself saying sheneeded to use the restroom. Bello, feeling awkward about theun-reciprocated advance, approached Paola and apologized. Paolafelt bad and telling herself to “keep his eye on the prize” (i.e.promotion) bought him an Orange Mocha Frappuccino on her break.Over the next three weeks his flirtations with Paola gained inintensity. He would brush up against her in the hallway and atmeetings, wink at her from across the room and require her to givehim a kiss on the cheek at the end of each meeting. At the sametime, Carla began acting angry toward Paola. She assumed that sinceBello was always flirting with Paola, Paola would get thepromotion. Fearing her Orange Mocha Frappuccino sent the wrongmessage and wanting to emphasize to Bello (and Carla) that she didnot want to have “relations” with Bello, Paola began to physicallyavoid him altogether. When he walked in a room, she stayed on theother side or walked out. When he would make eye contact, she wouldbreak it. She continued to perform her job responsibilities just asbefore with the exception of the weekly review meeting. Since thelewd gesture incident she began printing out the weekly reports andhaving someone else hand them to him after she left for the day.Finally, just before Christmas, Bello hired Carla for the Cashierposition. 3 From then on, Bello put Paola on all of the lessdesirable shifts, even over the new hire that replaced Carla. Shehad to work Christmas and New Year’s holidays and will have to workon Valentine’s Day. She was told that she was not allowed to speakin any language other than English while at work. Once, distractedby Philip’s sudden shriek at seeing a mouse, Paola dropped a box ofrobes and Bello exclaimed, “you clumsy woman.” Unhappy with herwork situation, she went to HR in downtown St. Louis for help. Youare the HR manager. Since the beginning of August 2018, you havereceived several job performance reports written by Bello citingPaola negatively for speaking Italian at work, her lack of abilityto follow instructions regarding the weekly reporting, herclumsiness and her inability to be a team player. Prior to August,the reports on her were all positive. Also, you received twoincident reports filed by Philip. Unbeknownst to Paola and Bello,Phillip had witnessed Bello’s lewd sexual gesture and Paola’swalking away last July, as well as the “clumsy woman” incident, andcited them both. Paola came in to see you to voice her concerns onSeptember 5, 2018. On September 10 you called in Bello to get hisside of the story. That day, when Bello got back from meeting you,he cornered Paola in the stock room, blocking her way to the door.She got scared and tried to walk around him and he stepped in frontof her, blocking her again, and saying that she could not leaveuntil they talked. She said they had nothing to talk about andtried to walk out again. This time he grabbed her arm tightly andsaid, “Please, we can make this right. Just relax.” At this pointhe started creepily massaging her shoulders. She faked relaxing andwhen he did not expect it, she hurried out of the door. The nextday, Paola reported to you what happened in the stock room.