When Socializing with Colleagues Becomes Part of the Job
The recent $4.5 million settlement involving WestJet and thousands of current and former female flight attendants ends a class action that began in 2016 with former WestJet flight attendant Mandalena Lewis.
Lewis worked as a WestJet flight attendant from 2008 to 2016. Her claim arose from an alleged incident during a 2010 crew layover in Maui. According to her court filing, crew members had gone to dinner together and Lewis later accepted a pilot’s invitation to have drinks. Lewis alleged that the pilot sexually assaulted her after they were alone and reported the incident to WestJet.
Lewis later alleged that she learned another female flight attendant had made a complaint involving the same pilot two years earlier. Her position was that WestJet had failed to adequately address the earlier complaint and protect female flight attendants from harassment.
Lewis subsequently became the representative plaintiff in a class action alleging that WestJet systemically breached its contractual commitment to provide female flight attendants with a harassment-free workplace.
WestJet denies the allegations, which were not determined at trial, and the settlement does not constitute an admission of liability or wrongdoing.
The Supreme Court of British Columbia approved the $4.5 million settlement in August 2026. The settlement also requires WestJet to retain an independent qualified third party to conduct a workplace assessment examining harassment, underreporting, barriers to reporting and opportunities to improve its reporting and response systems.
The circumstances alleged by Lewis raise a broader question for employers. The alleged incident did not occur on an aircraft or during a scheduled shift. It arose during a layover, after a crew dinner and while colleagues were socializing.
When does socializing with colleagues stop being purely social and become part of the workplace experience?
When Work and Social Life Overlap
Employees travel together, attend conferences, go for dinner or drinks, celebrate milestones, and attend company events. There is nothing inherently wrong with workplace socializing.
The concern arises when socializing becomes so embedded in the culture that employees feel participation is important to belonging, building relationships, or accessing opportunities. At that point, “it happened after work” may not tell the whole story.
A dinner after a conference may be social, but everyone may be there because of work. Drinks during a business trip may happen after hours, but workplace relationships and dynamics remain.
What connection did the behaviour have to the workplace, and what effect did it have when employees returned to work?
Alcohol, Boundaries and Judgement
Alcohol can lower inhibitions, affect judgement, and blur professional boundaries. But it does not erase workplace expectations.
This does not mean eliminating workplace socializing. It means recognizing the risks when work and social settings overlap. Respectful workplace expectations do not disappear simply because the setting has changed.
Prevention can be simple. Before a holiday party, conference or other work-related gathering, a brief memo can remind employees that workplace policies and expectations for respectful conduct continue to apply. It can reinforce professional boundaries, responsible alcohol consumption and where employees can turn if a concern arises.
A reminder before the event may help prevent a complaint after it.
Power Does Not Disappear After Hours
Power dynamics also matter.
Consider the relationship between a pilot and a flight attendant, a physician and a nurse, a senior executive and a junior employee, or a manager and an employee.
Someone in a more senior or influential position may have greater organizational authority, influence over assignments or career opportunities, or hold a role that is more challenging for the organization to replace.
Those dynamics do not disappear at a restaurant, bar or social event.
An employee may laugh off an inappropriate comment rather than offend someone influential. They may hesitate to set a boundary, speak up or report the behaviour because they are concerned about the effect on their working relationship or career.
Look Beyond the Policy
Having a harassment policy is important. But employers also need to consider what is happening in practice.
The WestJet settlement’s requirement for a workplace assessment examining harassment reporting and barriers to reporting is particularly noteworthy because it moves the conversation beyond whether a policy exists and toward how the workplace functions in practice.
That is a useful question for every organization:
What is happening in our workplace when no one from HR is in the room?
Can employees decline social activities without feeling excluded? Are professional boundaries clear? Do leaders recognize how their position may affect how others respond to them? Would an employee feel comfortable raising a concern involving someone senior or influential?
Prevention Through Education
At HR Proactive Inc., we believe prevention starts with education.
Workplace concerns can involve professional boundaries, emotional intelligence, sexual harassment awareness, communication, power dynamics and understanding the impact our behaviour can have on others.
HR Proactive has developed learning solutions that allow organizations to address these issues through curated workplace training content. Organizations can license our content for delivery through our SCORM file format to their own Learning Management System (LMS), with other delivery and customization options available.
Prevention is not only about responding when something goes wrong. It is about helping employees and leaders recognize risks and make better decisions before problems arise.
Work may end for the day. Respect does not.
Turn awareness into action with Respect in Action: Where Culture Meets Compliance, our interactive eLearning program designed to help employees recognize the everyday behaviours and choices that shape a respectful workplace.
