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Five Years After #MeToo, Here’s How HR Can Fight and Prevent Harassment
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A women's march in Seattle in January 2018. PHOTO: TED S. WARREN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Welcome back. I’m Carolyn McGourty Supple, a former journalist and business consultant who now heads the Center for Ethical Leadership in Media. I write a monthly column focusing on evidence-based ways to build a better workplace.
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October marked five years since the #MeToo movement got started and led to a national reckoning about workplace behavior. Yet even after a number of high-profile executives were fired or forced to resign, no industry seems immune from abuse of power.
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The media industry, unfortunately, has been no exception. As a journalist and business consultant, understanding why such unethical behavior could exist for so long and how to end it was the impetus behind a nonprofit and nonpartisan initiative I co-founded, the Center for Ethical Leadership in Media. I’ve also served as a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin for the past three years, where I’ve worked with scholars and faculty to educate students and leaders to build more ethical workplace cultures.
The journey to develop solutions took me into meetings with executives from a variety of industries and network news leaders who faced high-profile scandals involving their employees; individuals affected by abuse as well as alleged perpetrators; bystanders who wish they knew how to help; scholars who study workplace dynamics and harassment; regulators, lawyers and advocates; and university leadership preparing the next generation of workers.
The key takeaway for all workplaces: While it’s important to hold perpetrators accountable, it is even more important to focus on prevention instead of reaction. Here, human-resources leaders play a crucial role in helping executives and rank-and-file workers understand how cultures of harassment can get institutionalized and how to dismantle them.
Harassment is ultimately about power. Women have been disproportionately affected by workplace harassment because they often aren’t in traditional positions of power. But women can also be abusive: 17% of complaints that come to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are by men, who may be harassed by men or women at work. It’s important, then, to view harassment as one of human decency and not solely a “woman’s issue.”
However, while HR departments should be a key ally in helping companies adhere to laws preventing harassment and discrimination, they aren’t always viewed as effective. Rightly or wrongly, employees perceive HR as more likely to protect the company and its leadership instead of vulnerable employees. As a result, few cases of harassment are brought forward. The consequences are enormous—to business performance, employee morale and people’s careers.
So here are several evidence-based recommendations for HR leaders to put in place a strategy or framework for preventing harassment and creating safety at work:
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Zero tolerance: Research shows that the biggest predictor of sexual harassment is how permissive an organization is of this conduct, said Marianne Cooper, senior research scholar at Stanford University’s the VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab. “When employees sense that bad behavior is tolerated, perpetrators are emboldened, while employees who are targeted are hesitant to come forward out of concern that their complaints won’t be taken seriously and that it will be risky to report it,” she said. “Preventing a permissive culture requires cracking down on harassers, meting out appropriate punishments regardless of who the perpetrator is and discouraging bad behavior throughout the organization.”
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Effective training: Even before #MeToo, a task force developed by the EEOC on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace concluded that a strong training program is a critical piece of a harassment-prevention effort. And the focus of the training needs to be on fostering respectful workplaces rather than a punitive awareness of the law. “We know that workplace incivility often acts as a ‘'gateway drug’' to workplace harassment,” the EEOC said.
Training must be tailored to a specific industry to be relevant to its audience, with high-quality video and realistic scenarios. It shouldn’t be threatening, nor focus solely on victim experiences. Yet it must address the serious consequences of the behavior not just to individuals but also to an organization’s mission. In-person training is most effective, and follow-up exercises are needed.
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Business imperative: When there are high rates of harassment, companies lose money on lost productivity, risk long-lasting reputational damage and have been found in academic studies to underperform in the stock market. “HR leaders need to understand the high costs of sexual harassment not only to individual women, but to the organization overall,” said Ms. Cooper. Like all other business priorities, sufficient time and resources must be allocated to it.
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Bystander intervention: Research by Chloe Grace Hart, a scholar who studies harassment, shows that employees who self-report abusive experiences are likely to be negatively stereotyped and face bias. This is one of the reasons why they don’t report. But if bystanders—including witnesses or peers who are aware of the behavior—report on their behalf, the outcome will be more favorable. Empower employees to take care of each other, and ensure they understand what constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace according to the law.
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Proactive communication: HR leaders should partner with business leadership to communicate with staff and employees about the need for safety at work—before there is a crisis. Use moments like #MeToo to articulate values, such as integrity, respect and safety. Culture is set not only by what you say but also what you don’t say. So if leaders are silent on harassment, some employees will perceive they don’t care.
Some leaders, especially men, have told me they care about fighting and preventing harassment but don’t know what to say. They would benefit from coaching from their people leaders and HR partners about how to proactively communicate that they care for employee well-being and that unethical and inappropriate behavior won’t be tolerated.
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Partnership with legal: HR leaders unclear of the law or in need of support may find help from legal colleagues. Consider this example: A consulting executive I spoke with said that a subordinate was being harassed by a client. But rather than bringing the complaint to the company’s HR department, he went directly to the general counsel. The client was investigated, found of wrongdoing and fired immediately by his employer.
This suggests that HR leaders, when faced with unethical or even criminal conduct, should be empowered to partner with legal colleagues to help them navigate the complaint. Their collective duty is not only to the safety of the employee but also to the integrity—if not liability—of an organization.
“In its defense, HR often is not central to the operations of many organizations, and may not have sufficient influence or be empowered by senior management to be advocates for ethics,” said Peggy Cunningham, a professor of business at Dalhousie University.
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Simplify reporting processes: Often the processes for reporting unethical behavior are complicated, cumbersome and unclear, said Ms. Cunningham. “For example, in some organizations, HR, Legal, Title IX and Ombudsmen appear to operate somewhat independently and do not interface effectively.” Leaders can simplify reporting processes and create a “one-stop” means for reporting unethical behavior such as sexual harassment, she said. External, independent investigators can examine reports of sexual harassment. “Leaders need to communicate continuously about the importance of ethical values, and instill transparency in their organizations,” said Ms. Cunningham.
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Dismantle networks of complicity: Ms. Cunningham, along with her co-author, Minette Drumwright, at the University of Texas at Austin, studies why harassment persists in organizations and how it can be disrupted. Their research finds that unethical and even illegal conduct can persist for long periods as an open secret, often supported by others. They recommend that HR leaders can learn to identify not only perpetrators but also their “networks of complicity.” The network can be disbanded by changing job assignments and patterns of interaction, Ms. Cunningham said. “Once they understand network relationships and risk, leaders must allocate compliance resources to those employees who are at highest risk of unethical behavior.”
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Continued Below: Americans See Less Tolerance for Workplace Harassment Since #MeToo; Can You Get Ahead and Have a Life?
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Research Spotlight: Most Americans Believe There's Less Tolerance for Workplace Harassment Since #MeToo
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A #MeToo March in Los Angeles in November 2017. PHOTO: DAMAIN DOVARGANES/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Five years after the “MeToo” hashtag went viral, a study released in September by Pew Research Center finds that the #MeToo movement has positively affected how organizations manage instances of sexual harassment or assault at work. Some findings:
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70% of U.S. adults—including majorities across demographic groups and partisan lines—say that, compared with five years ago, people who commit sexual harassment or assault in the workplace are now more likely to be held responsible for their actions. About 60% say that those who report harassment or assault at work are now more likely to be believed.
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49% of Americans who have heard of the #MeToo movement say they support the movement either strongly or somewhat, compared with 30% who say they neither support nor oppose it and 21% who say they strongly or somewhat oppose it.
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46% say the increased focus on sexual harassment and assault in the last five years has made it harder for men to know how to interact with women in the workplace, while 21% say it has made it easier and 32% say it hasn’t made much difference.
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46%
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Percentage of Americans who say it is extremely or very common for those who have experienced sexual harassment or assault at work to not report it, according to a study released by the Pew Research Center.
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Can You Get Ahead and Still Have a Life? Younger Women Are Trying to Find Out
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AARON DURALL FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Deijha Martin, 26 years old, works as a data analyst from her Bronx, N.Y., apartment. On workdays, she’ll chip away at a task until 5:10 p.m. or 5:20 p.m., but never 6 p.m. She loves travel, and earlier this year tapped her company’s unlimited vacation policy to jet to Greece and France.
Having boundaries is a priority, but make no mistake: She’s plenty ambitious.
“I definitely do want to make money,” she says, so that she can fund the things she loves to do. “It’s just, not really fighting with anyone to get to the top.”
The pandemic’s shake-up of work and life has had lasting effects on ambition for a lot of women. For some, the last years have prompted a reassessment of how much they’re willing to give to their careers at the expense of family time or outside interests. For others, many of them younger professionals, seeing the ways other leaders have allowed work to subsume their lives is a turnoff. And after a spell of workplace flexibility few would have imagined before 2020, many women are now asking the question: Can you get ahead and still have a life?
“The company’s not hinging on your ability to answer an email at 11 o’clock p.m.,” says Alexis Koeppen, a 31-year-old technology worker in New Orleans. “The work will always be there for you.”
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“The workplace is still designed for people where work is the number-one priority all the time.”
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— Ellen Ernst Kossek, a management professor at Purdue University who studies gender and work
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PHOTO: CAITLIN OCHS/REUTERS
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Companies Reveal What They Pay Workers in New York: New York City employers are starting to comply with a new salary transparency law taking effect that will require nearly all job listings to include a pay range, a move expected to reshape workplaces and how companies hire.
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PHOTO: ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES
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U.S. Wages Rose Rapidly in Third Quarter, Keeping Pressure on Inflation: Wages and prices continued to rise rapidly in the late summer, keeping the Federal Reserve on track for more interest-rate increases as it attempts to cool economic growth and bring down high inflation.
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Why Middle Managers Are Feeling the Squeeze and How to Fix It
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Why? According to Brian Elliott, a senior vice president at Slack and executive leader of the Future Forum, it’s because middle managers are in a game of tug of war between executives and their direct reports. He tells us what executives can do to pave paths for middle managers to find success now. And we hear from a middle manager who decided she felt too squeezed to stay in a corporate job.
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What the Science of Power Can Tell Us About Sexual Harassment (Greater Good Magazine)
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Networks of Complicity: Social Networks and Sexual Harassment (ResearchGate)
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Who Do They Think They Are?: A Social-Cognitive Account of Gender Differences in Social Sexual Identity and Behavior at Work (ScienceDirect)
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Workplace Conduct Still Needs Improvement After #MeToo (Bloomberg Law)
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When Immersed in Sexual Harassment, Workers Can’t Identify It (Cornell Chronicle)
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