Dear Prudence,
I’m a man who runs a mid-size team (50 or so people) at a company. Over the past year one employee has complained five times about sexually inappropriate behavior from both colleagues inside our team and in other parts of the company. Her complaints fall within the broadest concept of workplace harassment (being called “sweetie” by a co-worker, for example), but we take them all seriously. We discuss what happened and how to behave going forward with the offending party, and also note the complaint in their personnel file. My worry is that while her concerns are legitimate, they also seem like marginal offenses and her volume of complaints gives her a bit of a “boy who cried wolf” image. Outside of her, we have had one harassment claim in the past five years (which ended in a dismissal). I’m worried I am hurting the careers of her peers careers by reporting offenses that seem overly sensitive. How do I address this?