Tackling The Issue Of Sexual Harassment In Workplace

Key insights from the XpertHR workplace sexual harassment survey

Over the last year, sexual harassment has been brought to the forefront of employers’ minds as many well-known individuals have been accused of sexual misconduct in the workplace and the #metoo movement has exploded. The floodgates opened with the Harvey Weinstein scandal, and since then the tide hasn’t seemed to slow down. However,it’s not just high-profile individuals that are at risk, and employers need to make sure they are tackling the issue of sexual harassment in the right way.

XpertHR conducted a survey of HR professionals in February 2018 on the topic of sexual harassment and received over 500 responses from small, medium, and large employers across a wide range of industries spanning all geographic areas of the country. Unsurprisingly, sexual harassment is an issue that employers will continue to tackle in 2018 in a variety of different ways.
 
Companies are placing an increased focus on company sexual harassment policies and training. More than half (53%) of the 548 organizations surveyed said that sexual harassment policies and training would take on a greater concern in 2018, according to the new XpertHR Workplace Sexual Harassment survey. However, while most (92%) have a formal sexual harassment policy, only 38% plan to update their policies in 2018.
 
It’s not only important for organizations to have sexual harassment policies in place but to also update them regularly and make sure employees are aware of them.
 
Around three-quarters of companies currently offer sexual harassment prevention training, while 22% do not. When asked about their plans for sexual harassment training in 2018, just 29% were planning to offer it, 43% were unsure, and 27% were not planning to offer training. And, only 18% are planning to offer bystander training.
 
Human resources departments should ensure that both supervisors and employees are educated on harassment protection. Employers may face increased liability risks for failing to take all reasonable steps necessary to prevent harassment from occurring.
 
When it comes to confidentiality, only 39% of the respondents thought confidentiality agreements should be included in a sexual harassment settlement, while 32% had no opinion, and 28% said they did not think they should be included. The survey respondents who answered “no,” felt that “agreements protect the perpetrators,” “transparency is key to shedding light on the problem of sexual harassment,” and “the agreements would allow sexual harassment to continue.”
 
Only a few of the organizations surveyed had reached confidential agreements during the past five years. (76% had zero settlements, while 2% had 20 or more.) However, participants who indicated that their organizations had settled sexual harassment claims in the past said they could be very costly to organizations. When asked to estimate the average amount paid for each settlement, survey respondents revealed that 18% were more than $50,000.

Increased Scrutiny and Confidence Levels

Overall, survey participants seemed relatively confident in their workplaces’ ability to combat and prevent sexual harassment:

 
All employers -- both large and small -- need to make sure they are tackling the issue of sexual harassment in the right manner and avoiding common mistakes.
 
Interactive Report: Survey report