Sexual Harassment Linked to Bias, Inclusion & Respect

A new report has linked incidences of sexual harassment in the workplace to respect, bias and inclusion.

The study carried out by e-learning and analytics platform Emtrain, in partnership with the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California-Hastings, is the first one to link respect, inclusion, bias and sexual harassment in the workplace. The report entitled “A Data-Driven Approach to Winning the War for Talent During the Great Resignation,” also provides insight into how addressing these issues holistically can help companies win the war for talent during the Great Resignation; after analysing workplace data from 22,000 employees across different industries.

The research found that employees whose workplace experience showed bias and a lack of respect and inclusion were more likely to report incidents of harassment. “The takeaway message here is clear,” said Joan C Williams, Director of the Center for WorkLife Law. “Respect, authenticity and belonging, and confidence in career development opportunities are all impacted by workplace bias. Furthermore, sexual harassment is strongly linked to bias, belonging, and confidence in career development opportunities.”

DISCRIMINATION & HARASSMENT COMPLAINTS

The report suggests these findings can be a challenge for organisations that tend to manage harassment, inclusion and respect in different functional silos; human resources teams select anti-harassment training and learning and development teams deploy it; legal teams manage discrimination and harassment complaints and claims to protect the organisation from financial and reputation risk. Additionally, diversity leaders are tasked with inclusion; many of them in newly created positions across leading companies and in silos.    

Organisations must eliminate silos between DEI, culture and anti-harassment initiatives, noted the report. “This should serve as a wake up call for companies that take a siloed approach to their DEI, culture and anti-harassment initiatives,” said Emtrain CEO Janine Yancey. “This siloed approach is flawed because these issues are linked; organisations committed to creating lasting change need to address respect, inclusion, respect, bias and harassment in a holistic manner. Companies that ignore the connection between these initiatives expose themselves to greater risk; and are at danger of losing valuable talent.”

POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

The report also detailed some solutions for addressing this challenge to retain top talent. They include:

• Coordinate across silos. Anti-harassment and inclusion initiatives are best measured, designed and delivered in conjunction with each other; because the issues are intrinsically linked. 
• Measure perceptions and behaviours as they pertain to business operations. Don’t analyse harassment claims data separate from diversity and inclusion or culture-related data. 
• Train holistically. Anti-harassment training, inclusion and diversity training and employee engagement programmes are different dimensions of the same set of challenges; and they share common roots. Focus training on skill building for the attitudes and behaviours that help teams identify and mitigate bias and foster inclusion.

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