Speaker Profile
SUSAN STRAUSS
Dr. Susan Strauss is a national and international speaker, trainer, consultant, and a recognized expert on workplace and school harassment and bullying. She conducts harassment and bullying investigations and functions as an expert witness in harassment and bullying lawsuits. Her clients are from business, education, healthcare, law, and government organizations from both the public and the private sector.
Dr. Strauss has conducted research, written over 30 books, book chapters, and journal articles on harassment, bullying, and related topics. She has been featured on 20/20, CBS Evening News, and other television and radio programs as well as interviewed for newspaper and journal articles such as Harvard Education Newsletter, Lawyers Weekly, and Times of London.
Susan is the recipient of the Excellence in Educational Equity Award from the Minnesota Department of Education for her work in sexual harassment in education. She has spoken about sexual harassment at international conferences in Botswana, Egypt, Thailand, and the U.S. She consulted with the Israeli Ministry of Education, as well as with educators from Israel, England, Australia, St. Maartin, Bali, and Canada. She traveled to Poland and conducted research on sex discrimination and sexual harassment in Polish workplaces with Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights. She has consulted with health professionals in Beirut regarding violence in healthcare. Susan has a doctorate in organizational leadership. She is a registered nurse, has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and counseling, a master’s degree in community health, and a professional certificate in training and development. She has been involved in the harassment and bullying arena since 1985.

Care of the LGBTQ Patient and Their Families: Policies, Procedures, Practices and Laws
Whether your employer is a clinic, a hospital, home health, or long term care; whether you are an MD, RN, an occupational therapist, a receptionist, or in the C-Suite, approximately 5% - 10% of your patients may be gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Additional patients may be transgender, intersex, or questioning their gender identity or sexual orientation. The healthcare needs of LGBT patients may appear to be the..

Communicating in Challenging Situations
What do you think of when you think of – communication? How adept are you at communicating with others? Do you ever wish you could say “No” and not feel guilty? Do you and your spouse seem to be speaking in two different languages? And, how about that boss of yours – always disrespectful and rude – how do you deal with that? Communication skills are important in working and living together effectively..

How to Conduct a Harassment and Bullying Investigation To Restore Harmony and Reduce Liability
Title VII and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) require workplaces receiving a complaint, or otherwise learning of alleged discrimination or harassment, investigate in a timely manner and take appropriate corrective action to end the harassment and prevent the misconduct from recurring. That’s a tall order to ensure a just and fair handling of a harassment complaint - an essential order tha..

Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: A Necessary Workplace Survival Tactic
What do we mean when we think about – Diversity? Inclusion? Is it referring only to race, disability, and gender? Diversity and inclusion strategies have expanded to include the differences among us in the way we do our work, how we think, as well as where we work in the organization. This webinar will discuss the forms diversity and inclusion take within our workplaces, and how that translates into t..

Essentials for Documenting Investigations: HR and Management’s Responsibility to Minimize Liability
As the saying goes - If it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen! Documentation is essential for many legal issues, disputes, audits, meetings, and decision making, to name a few. Perhaps nowhere is it more critical than when documenting your investigation. Your documentation memoralizes the entire investigation, it minimizes confusion, corroborates stories and evidence, demonstrates patterns of behavior and s..

EEOC Report: Workplace Discrimination and Harassment Prevention Not Working - Workplaces Fail To Implement Systemic Changes
You have been in Human Resources or management for years. Your plate is full - too much to do and to know in your increasingly stressful job. You are expected to stay current in discrimination and harassment case law for all the federal and state protected classes. Are you current? It seems like an unending responsibility. You remember hearing something in the news about a change in the pregnancy law, but c..

Civility in the Workplace: Is There an App for That?
All of us would like to come to work on Monday mornings knowing we will be treated respectfully and professionally. And if we find some uncivil behavior all we need to do is access our “civil app” and poof, it will be gone. Unfortunately, more and more employees feel the opposite - they experience rude and discourteous misconduct from their boss, their colleagues, and even their customers or clients; and it..

Managing the Remote Workforce During Covid-19 and Beyond: Policies, Procedures, and Practices
Employers and employees are experiencing one of the biggest challenges in history in how people work. Some have never worked from home - some with spouses, kids, and pets at their desk – assuming they even have a desk at home. Many managers have never managed employees who work from home. The new situation is stressful and may be all-consuming. The new virtual work environment offers exciting opportunities ..

Managers and HR – Best Practices for Virtual and In-Person Onboarding Your New Hire: Policies, Practices, and Processes
As managers and HR professionals, we’re in a new world creating new challenges in the way we do our work including how we welcome and engage our new hires virtually and in person.. We have new challenges now with the virtual and hybrid workplace – how do we onboard a new employee virtually? Onboarding virtually creates new opportunities that we may continue to use even when the pandemic is not as much of a ..

Bootcamp: Conducting A Workplace Investigation - Techniques To Determine Facts and Writing Report
When we think of workplace investigations, the most common thought is that of investigating harassment complaints. However, there are so many other forms of workplace misconduct that require investigations such as: theft, safety or OSHA issues, retaliation, vandalism, working off the clock, substance abuse, social media violations, and violations of various company policies, as examples. Usually this ..

BEST SELLER - How Do They Work Together—Or Not? : The Complexity & Interplay Among the ADAAA, FMLA, and Worker’s Comp
Challenges - It’s confusing, isn’t it? How are we supposed to keep it all straight when there are times when the legal requirements of both the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the American Disabilities Act Amendment Act (ADAAA) are similar, yet at other times one law contradicts another? We find that we can’t comply with both laws at the same time, so which one takes precedence over the other? And where..

BEST SELLER - How to Conduct a Harassment & Bullying Investigation
The EEOC requires that employers receiving a complaint, or otherwise learning of alleged harassment in the workplace, “investigate promptly and thoroughly…take immediate and appropriate corrective action by doing whatever is necessary to end the harassment, make the victim whole by restoring lost employment benefits or opportunities, and prevent the misconduct from recurring”. That’s a tall order to ensure ..

BEST SELLER - LGBT Inclusion in the Workplace: Navigating Policies, Procedures, and Practices
Workplaces have made progress towards LGBTQ equality yet LGBTQ workers still go to work every day with the fear that they might lose their jobs because of whom they love and who they are. There is no federal law protecting the LGB community from workplace discrimination and harassment. There is confusion among organizations as to whether the federal civil rights law Title VII protects gay, lesbian, and bise..

BEST SELLER - Nurse to Nurse Bullying: A Sepsis in Healthcare
Nurse to nurse bullying threatens the safety and well-being of patients and nurses. The misconduct is a major problem to all nurses and causing 60% of new nurses to leave their first nursing position and 1 in 3 nurses to quit the profession. Sometimes the bullying is so subtle it is almost invisible yet causes cumulative damage to the targeted nurse as well as those nurses who witness the behavior. The Join..

Exploring the Bermuda triangle of FMLA, WC (Worker’s Comp) and the ADAAA (Including COVID within the Three Laws) To Help Clear the Confusion
Challenges - It’s confusing isn’t it? It has been made more confusing with the addition of COVID. How are we supposed to keep it all straight when there are times when the legal requirements of both Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the American Disabilities Act Amendment Act (ADAAA) are similar, yet at other times one law contradicts another? We find that we can’t comply with both laws at the same time, ..