The camera flickers on. A grid of faces appears. Someone makes a comment that lands like a stone. Maybe it’s a remark about your accent, a joke about your pronouns, a sexual comment slipped into the chat. You’re working from home, but it doesn’t feel safe. The meeting ends; the feeling doesn’t.
For a long time, workers were told that harassment was confined to hallways and conference rooms. Federal and New York law now recognize that a workplace is wherever work is happening: on video calls, in team chats, in texts after hours, and on the screens we’re expected to be glued to. In April 2024, the EEOC released updated harassment guidance for the first time in twenty-five years and addressed the virtual office directly: harassing comments on a video call or in a group chat can contribute to an unlawful hostile work environment, and even off-site conduct like social media posts can be actionable if they bleed into working conditions. That’s a recognition that the “office” now rides in our pockets and sits on our kitchen tables.
New York State has also rebuilt its framework. Since 2019, employees do not have to prove that conduct was “severe or pervasive” to bring a harassment claim under the NYS Human Rights Law. The standard is whether a worker was subjected to inferior terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of a protected trait; the employer can try to defend by arguing the behavior was only a petty slight or a trivial inconvenience. In other words, repeated slurs on a team channel, a manager’s “jokes” that won’t stop on Zoom, or suggestive messages during a late-night sprint can cross the legal line even if no one is cornered in a hallway.
New York City has long applied a broader lens. The City’s Human Rights Law asks a practical question: Were you treated less well because of who you are? It’s a standard designed for the everyday realities of bias, including in hybrid teams where a group chat can become the whole culture. The City’s training rules, which require annual training for many employers (generally those with 15 or more employees), also reflect that the problem isn’t confined to a physical office. The training mandate sits alongside the City’s substantive protections; it’s not a shield against liability when behavior crosses the line.
Policy has also evolved with technology. In April 2023, New York State updated its Model Sexual Harassment Prevention Policy and training materials to provide real-world examples of how harassment manifests in a remote environment, such as inappropriate imagery visible on camera or sexual comments in chat during a video meeting. That public guidance matters because it sets the expectation that employers must prevent and correct harassment in digital spaces just as they do on a shop floor or in a conference room.
If you’re living this – if the comments keep coming in a Slack thread, if the “banter” follows you from your inbox to your phone, if the one person with power uses a camera as cover, New York law doesn’t ask you to decide whether it’s “bad enough” before you speak. City and State standards are built to see patterns, context, and impact. And even if you’re unsure where the line falls, the law protects you when you complain in good faith. Retaliation in the form of cutting hours, changing shifts, or a sudden termination, remains unlawful whether the complaint is about a cubicle or a chat window.
At Risman & Risman, P.C., we hear from people every week who thought remote work would make their jobs safer and easier, only to find the hostility moved online. We help New Yorkers distinguish between challenging jobs and hostile environments, document what’s happening, and hold employers accountable to the standards that apply regardless of whether work is done on-site, hybrid, or fully remote. If something about your remote work life makes you feel less safe or less respected because of who you are, you don’t have to wait for it to escalate. The law already sees what you’re living. So do we.
Contact us for a free consultation by phone at 212-233-6400 or online.