So few information, but so many people ready to fire his ass.
At this point, I wonder if we should have men/women segregation in the workplace. This is the logical conclusion if you want to avoid this kind of problems.
> I wonder if we should have men/women segregation in the workplace.
That assumes all of your employees are heterosexual.
Once you assume some employees may be homosexual, bisexual, non-binary, asexual, etc. you quickly get a graph where employees are nodes are edges are "could possibly have unwanted attraction towards" that is not bipartite.
I think that people in the USA tend to make extreme reactions with known 'social problems'.
Racism lead to an overreaction and abuse from the minorities in _some situations_ [i'm not saying that racism is dead, all I'm saying is that sometimes you spot an overreaction to something].
Sexual harassment lead to this.
If anyone is building a team, the best way to deal with this is to discuss it with the team, and draw a clear line in the sand of what is tolerated and what isn't.
OP: I cannot judge by the information you have given me if this was inappropriate conduit or not, present that info to someone else who is going to be honest to you (you should have a friend or two like that that won't simply pander to you if you're building a company, also, present that without bias)
You being upset might be for a number of reasons.
Then, if it was inappropriate, ask for a lawyers advice to see if this it is ok to do the following: talk with the team and say what is inappropriate and what isn't and what is going to be tolerated and what isn't going to be tolerated, ask their opinion on those guidelines and be flexible on those according to what you hear.
That assumes all of your employees are heterosexual.
Once you assume some employees may be homosexual, bisexual, non-binary, asexual, etc. you quickly get a graph where employees are nodes are edges are "could possibly have unwanted attraction towards" that is not bipartite.