We Are Not Doing It Right: An Insider's Critical Call for Improving Harassment Training
By DeDe Church, Principal of DeDe Church & Associates, LLC

The room is crowded, the temperature is stifling, and the snacks are stale. A tired group sits with heads bowed, looking for any excuse to avoid this sexual harassment training class.  

“Will someone clean the portable toilet outside?” Fifty-seven hands fly into the air while people scream, “Me! Me!”

The trainer tries out a new opening that flops, and she sighs as 17 people blatantly bring out their cell phones. But she perseveres through the next 59 minutes of dry, cautionary warnings and legalese. A box will be checked, personnel files will be updated with attendance records, and the company will go through the same waste of time next year. Meanwhile, supervisors are abandoned on the front lines with no guidance on how to respond when a sobbing employee accuses their best worker of inappropriate behavior.

Why do we keep doing it this way? Thirty years ago when the Supreme Court first prescribed training on sexual harassment avoidance, they surely didn’t imagine we would take an opportunity for helpful education and contort it into an annual beat-down in the same “dread category” as a colonoscopy.

We know we need to train our managers and employees. But forcing them to listen to 17 paragraphs of legal jargon or making them stare at computer training while they mindlessly hit “page down” and stare at their phones is not the answer. The EEOC confirms that “much of the training done over the last 30 years has not worked as a prevention tool – it’s been too focused on simply avoiding legal liability.

I wish I were only complaining about the sheer boredom and ineffectiveness of most training. But the situation is much worse than that. I believe our current approach to training is causing direct harm to the people it is intended to protect. By shaking our fingers at men (mostly) and sharing scary stories of huge jury verdicts, embarrassing headlines, and the unforgiving horrors of a “zero tolerance policy,” we have frightened men into believing they are very likely to be accused of harassment regardless of their innocence. They see themselves at risk for being labeled perverts if they call someone “honey” or put their hand on a weary colleague’s shoulder. These scared rabbits now believe their security lies in only one strategy: avoid being alone with women à la Billy Graham and Mike Pence.

And so, we are not doing training right. If our discussion of a movement that invites people forward to expose the mistreatment they’ve suffered ultimately terrifies men into creating new barriers for those same people, then we are not doing it right.

Instead of boring legalese coupled with finger-shaking scare tactics, let’s make live training more user-friendly and address the actual challenges likely to arise in today’s workplace. If we give supervisors a clear understanding of the roots of the #Metoo movement and the tools to feel confident in their approach to any concerns that arise, they will be less likely to cowardly deprive their female colleagues of opportunities.

So let’s do training differently and consider incorporating these suggestions.

1) Include a discussion on how often employees deliberately bring false accusations of harassment. From our own research, the answer is “not very often.” In 2018, our team of investigators at DeDe Church & Associates, LLC conducted 24 investigations into allegations of sexual harassment for clients including Whole Foods Market, American Airlines, Siemens, and MD Anderson Cancer Center. Based on the information reviewed (witness statements, emails, texts, videos, etc.) we substantiated 2/3 of those complaints. The other third of complaints were found to be unsubstantiated, but not wholly fabricated. We identified only one or perhaps two complainants who operated from a place of malintent or possible mental instability, and our experience appears to parallel findings by outside research groups. Rather than teaching managers to fear false accusations in the workplace, let’s redirect their attention to the high number of actual victims of harassment who never feel safe enough to come forward. The EEOC estimates that 75% of workplace harassment incidents go unreported altogether.  Managers are usually the first line of defense against workplace harassment, but they must deliberately create a safe space for victims to come forward because, of course, they can only correct what they know about.
2) Give managers ideas for creating that safe space. Ask them hard questions about how open their doors really are. Talk to them about the importance of setting a good example. Ask them this question: if your subordinates were huddled up laughing at an inappropriate video and you approached, would they immediately apologize and disperse, or would they rush to share the video with you?  
3) Ensure that managers know exactly what to say when faced with a complaint of harassment. Let them actually practice the first words they should utter in every such situation: “Thank you for letting me know.” And remind them of the words that should never enter such a conversation: “No, not Bob. You must be mistaken. Are you sure you want to go forward with this? This is not a good time. This could affect your bonus. The executive team is going to be very unhappy.”
4) Teach everyone at the organization the words they can use to address misbehavior immediately when it occurs: “That just crossed my line – please stop.” And let everyone practice responding to a co-worker who says his/her line has been crossed: “I am sorry” with no defensiveness or judgement and no attempt to explain the behavior from the respondent’s point of view.
5) Introduce (if needed) and praise the concept of “bystander reporting” by reminding all employees of the shared goal of a respectful workplace for all. Create a sense of collective responsibility. Address the fear of retaliation and explain the safety protocols in place to prevent retaliation from happening.
6) Most importantly, establish parameters for a workplace culture that is respectful to all, thus diminishing the possibility that a complaint will arise in the first place. Those parameters might include avoiding nick names, complimenting a person’s work performance as opposed to his/her appearance, and establishing social media and happy hour boundaries.

At a minimum, we need to walk away from pre-2017 training styles and curriculums that do not reflect the sensitivities of the #Metoo movement. By incorporating these changes into our training, we hope the end result will be more confident supervisors who understand their roles and a workforce that embraces their responsibility to create a culture of respect for all.

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