When it comes to investing in business culture, one of the most common rebuttals we come across from business leaders is the belief that there is no unwanted behaviour happening in their organisation. In their eyes, they don’t need to make improvements to their workplace culture or have any need for an anonymous reporting platform because they aren’t aware of its existence.
We often wonder how leaders can seemingly be so blindsided when it comes to the prevalence of workplace misconduct. Surely when you work with large organisations the concept that misconduct never happens is undeniably flawed?
The truth is that often people in a position of power can’t always see sexual harassment, or any other types of bullying or harassment for that matter. As a senior leader, your employees are probably always ‘nice’ to you and you’re surrounded by other senior leaders who are respectful and therefore you don’t witness this type of behaviour first hand.
You rightly or wrongly assume that because it’s not happening in front of you, then it’s not happening at all.
Reasons why leaders can’t see sexual harassment at work
The very nature of harassment is an attempt to exert power over someone and as a result, harassers tend to target people who they perceive as powerless to challenge. This is another reason why senior leaders lack the visibility into the prevalence of sexual harassment at work, directly as a result of their status in the business.
In many cases, the people who have the remit to change things for those that experience bullying and harassment, are often part of the problem. According to a survey conducted by the UK government, up to 41% of employees who experience sexual harassment feel that their complaints have no consequence for the perpetrator, which discourages future reports. Sexual harassment or other types of unwanted behaviour frequently go overlooked, wrongly signalling the behaviour is acceptable. Further research shows that only about half of employees believe their workplace handles sexual harassment well, indicating a disconnect between leadership and employees.
Lack of awareness or understanding of what constitutes sexual harassment
Quite often business leaders may not fully understand what constitutes sexual harassment, and whilst there may be awareness of the broad concept, it often lacks clear definition or understanding of the impact it can have on people.
Sexual harassment can take many different forms, some examples of sexual harassment are:
- Unwanted attention and verbal comments – whether it’s about a co-workers appearance, inappropriate jokes or comments of a sexual nature.
- Unwanted touching and physical contact – which could include groping, lingering touches or invasion of personal space, physical advances and non-consensual touching.
- Unwanted messages and calls
- Inappropriate gestures or sharing sexually explicit content
- Offering or implying job benefits or employment conditions are dependent on sexual favours
Cultural blind spot to sexual harassment
Some leaders just have a complete blind spot when it comes to identifying sexual harassment and other forms of unwanted behaviour. It’s possible that the behaviour is systemic, and behaviours have been normalised over a long period of time, so much so, it’s considered ‘the way things are’.
Senior leaders are often removed from the day-to-day goings on, particularly in large organisations. Sexual harassment often happens in less visible areas of the business, amongst employees lower-down the hierarchy so leaders may not even be aware of this behaviour. According to a survey conducted by the UK government, up to 41% of employees who experience sexual harassment feel that their complaints have no consequence for the perpetrator, which discourages future reports.
They’re disconnected from what’s really happening in their organisation so are led to believe they have a good workplace culture and aren’t truly aware of what’s really going on.
Research shows that only about half of employees believe their workplace handles sexual harassment well, indicating a disconnect between leadership and employees.
Leadership diversity
Unfortunately, many leadership teams still lack diversity. Men still drastically outnumber women, whilst ethnic minorities and LGBTQ+ people are vastly underrepresented at leadership level.
According to the 2023 census data, just under three quarters of all CEOs in the UK are male.
90% of FTSE 100 (the UK’s top 100 biggest businesses) are men and 96% of them are White – only 6 CEOs on the FTSE 100 come from ethnic minority backgrounds.
This lack of diversity can contribute to cultural blind spots and may not fully resonate or empathise with the experiences of people facing sexual harassment, particularly women, which makes it harder for leaders to identify instances.
No reporting channels
If you don’t see or experience sexual harassment taking place, and no one reports any incidents, how can you begin to understand or tackle something you can’t see?
When there are inadequate reporting channels, employees may not feel safe speaking up or reporting incidents of sexual harassment when they experience them.
Recent research by the UK government suggests that 40% of women and 18% of men have experienced some sort of unwanted sexual behaviour in the workplace, ranging from inappropriate jokes to serious sexual assault.
Our own research found that only 36% of people who have witnessed or experienced problematic behaviour at work report it but 62% would be much more likely to do so if they could do it anonymously.
Leaders may assume that because there are no reports of sexual harassment, it’s not taking place, rather than the more likely scenario that employees do not feel confident to speak up about the things they are experiencing or witnessing.
Personal bias
Consciously or unconsciously, there may be biases around stereotypes which prevent leaders from recognising sexual harassment. For instance, gender stereotypes can influence perception and may excuse behaviour that would normally be viewed as unacceptable, believing that claims are exaggerated, or actions are downplayed as trivial.
Fear of the repercussions
Tackling sexual harassment can be challenging and take time, particularly if its systemic throughout the organisation. Leaders may not take action to address sexual harassment for fear of the repercussions and how much of their time it may take up. They could find themselves facing ongoing legal battles which damages reputation and morale, plus leaders may feel it reflects badly on their leadership capabilities.
Focus elsewhere on other priorities
Business leaders are busy people and prioritise business performance and achieving commercial targets. Whilst there’s now tangible evidence to support the benefits of a positive workplace culture and preventing sexual harassment at work, it still remains less of a priority in many organisations.
How can leaders become aware of sexual harassment?
Review your culture
Conducting a comprehensive culture review is often the best place to start. You need to take an objective approach and assess the culture across your business, not just in isolation of your personal experience.
Reflect carefully on whether your culture empowers people to speak up and report issues when they happen. When reports are made, is the matter dealt with swiftly and action taken to hold individuals accountable?
Build trust
Focus on building trust and creating the conditions for all employees to feel safe speaking up without fear of the personal consequences.
Create open dialogue between employees and senior leaders to form the foundation of a positive workplace culture. The more that employees can see leaders taking ownership of driving positive change the more they will trust that incidents will be actioned and all parties will be dealt with fairly.
Implement an anonymous reporting platform
One proven way to build trust with your employees and encourage more people to report incidents is to implement an anonymous reporting platform like Culture Shift.
Employees need an easy and transparent way to report incidents, beyond the traditional HR or line management route. There are many reasons why employees don’t report sexual harassment at work, from fear of the repercussions to feeling like a report won’t make any difference or help with what they have been through. These are just a few reasons why people may want to remain anonymous when they’ve witnessed or experienced sexual harassment – it could be something quite traumatic that they find difficult to communicate face to face.
By removing the barriers to reporting and creating a confidential and anonymous channel, it gives people an easy way to report and helps to build confidence to speak up when they see or experience unwanted behaviour.
Collect & review data
Trust isn’t built overnight, so reports tend to start slowly and build up over time as employees become more comfortable with the idea of reporting and get used to new systems and processes.
The more data you have available to you, whether that’s through anonymous reporting software like Culture Shift or another method, more data means more actionable insights, helping you build a true picture of the culture in your organisation.
These insights let you learn more about your culture than ever before. With our platform you can identify behaviour patterns through real-time reporting and spot trends early. These insights inform new initiatives that move towards prevention and culture transformation
Training
Regular, comprehensive training on the topic of sexual harassment at all levels of your organisation is essential, it helps everyone understand what sexual harassment is and how to spot the signs, making it easier to address.
Training sessions should be designed to engage your workforce and foster an environment where everyone is treated with respect and dignity at work, along with guidance on what to do should you see or experience sexual harassment in the workplace.
As experts in Culture management with many years’ experience, our training academy is built to engage, inspire discussion and encourage collaborative learning, with a focus on practical takeaways to implement straight away, improving your organisation’s response to culture damaging behaviours.
Learn more about our training academy here
Accountability
Workplace culture is set from the top, so when leaders actively engage in preventing sexual harassment at work, it sends a message to all employees that it’s taken seriously. You need to demonstrate behaviour that underpins a culture of respect and inclusion.
Along with leadership accountability, when reports are made and issues do arise, you need to deal with these promptly and effectively, holding people accountable. Accountability plays a critical role in building trust, responsibility and transparency. When leaders act, investigate and implement solutions fairly, employees are more likely to report concerns they see.
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Sources https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/tackling-sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60f03e068fa8f50c77458285/2021-07-12_Sexual_Harassment_Report_FINAL.pdf https://committees.parliament.uk/work/6032/sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace-inquiry/publications/ https://standout-cv.com/leadership-statistics-uk
