When it comes to the problem of sexual harassment, maybe the real problem is the sex of the individuals involved.
This one sounds like something out of the children’s party game “Telephone,” where each person says something that’s immediately misinterpreted by the listener.
The research group Novations did a survey of working women asking them if they noticed a decrease or increase in the number of inappropriate sex-tinged comments in their workplaces.
The results: The women reported that the number of such comments had almost doubled from 2006 to 2007.
Clearly, there’s a problem out there in the working world. Or is there?
When the company asked men the same question, the guys reported almost no increase in such comments.
OK, now that’s a problem. Women believe the working environment is getting worse. Men think everything’s business as usual.
Who’s right?
There’s no way to know who’s right, and we can assume that each group is being truthful, so how do address the problem? In training sessions and meetings:
Define what constitutes a sexually inappropriate comment in your workplace. You’ll have to go deeper than the standard “anything that makes the listener uncomfortable and intimidated.” Give examples of what’s OK and what’s not.
You can glean examples by looking at cases where people had to be warned or disciplined over comments. Report what they said (without using names or other identifying information, of course).
Encourage employees to immediately report when they think they’ve been victimized by such comments. Then, you can quickly sort out and address whether the comments crossed the line.
Doing so will provide the alleged perpetrator and the victim with an object lesson in what’s appropriate and what’s not.
