Think Harassment Isn’t Happening at Your Organization? Maybe it Just Isn’t Being Reported.

By Heather Nezich, courtesy of SBAM Approved Aartner ASE

From sexual harassment to discrimination to power abuse, harassment affects more than just a handful of employees. Harassment deteriorates culture and morale and can lead to psychological discomfort, leaving a job, or lawsuits. Why is this happening? And how can organizations work to prevent harassment before it begins, or hear about issues when they arise?

AllVoices conducted a survey of 822 American workers. Of the 822 respondents, 52.8% were male and 47.2% female. 43.8% of respondents report that they have experienced some kind of harassment at work, across all sectors and sizes – even with remote work.

The survey confirms that harassment is affecting nearly half of workers today, creating toxic work environments. Additionally, over half of employees have been in work environments where they have not felt psychologically safe, which impacts an employee’s ability to share ideas, bring up concerns, or contribute to their workplace culture.

What kind of harassment did respondents experience?

Where is the harassment coming from?

Remote work is not a solution.

Addressing issues of harassment.

Harassment prevention and initiatives.

Harassment will thrive if ignored, and will deplete morale, create unsafe working conditions, and will lead to employees leaving, lawsuits, or bad media attention. This is why workplaces must take an active approach to harassment, by not just normalizing the conversation around harassment, but by encouraging employees to report it, and putting initiatives in place to actively prevent harassment before it starts.

A key approach to preventing harassment includes actively talking about it at staff meetings, trainings, and other places for open dialogue, and implementing initiatives to prevent it.

Reporting harassment in the workplace.

The top five reasons given for not reporting harassment are:

Respondents who reported their issue to a manager were more likely to see manager-to-employee harassment. Additionally, unless the manager then reports the issue to HR, there may not be a record of the issue ever being reported, as the issue can easily fall by the wayside in a manager’s hands.

What actions employers can take to encourage more reporting?

There’s still a lot of work to be done, but one of the first steps is not just listening to — and believing — employees, but to value your organization’s health and wellbeing enough to want to hear about issues of harassment – and more importantly, preventing it.