Kaley and Huma are co-workers. Having joined Wild Pines Solutions at the same time, they both became good work friends and often spent lunchtime together. In one such casual lunch conversation, Kaley asks Huma “I absolutely love your new Instagram pictures. You look gorgeous!”. Huma feels uncomfortable with Kaley’s comment but feels that Kaley is her friend, she probably meant well.
After this comment, Huma feels less comfortable talking to Kaley but also feels unsure of telling Kaley how she feels – afraid she won’t be taken seriously.
Sexual harassment is a problem worldwide with 40% of women and 16% of men reporting having felt sexually harassed in the workplace. Sexual harassment has a lot of nuance and takes various forms, in the workplace.
What is sexual harassment?
Sexual harassment covers unwelcome, sexually-tinted behaviour, whether directly or by implication. Sexual harassment is not limited to any one form of behaviour, it includes behaviour such as physical contact and advances, demand or request for sexual favours, making sexually coloured remarks, showing pornography, or any other unwelcome physical, verbal, or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature.
Can Kaley’s comment be sexual harassment? It wasn’t explicit but just a friendly compliment given by a co-worker.
Sexual harassment is not limited to any form of sexually explicit behaviour, as we saw in the definition. It can be physical sexual harassment such as touching or violating personal space, verbal or non-verbal sexual harassment like comments, gestures, and expressions and written or graphic sexual harassment such as drawings, chat messages and emails.
Kaley’s comment can be classified as verbal sexual harassment. Her comment was about Huma’s appearance and her personal life, which she posted on Instagram. At the workplace, conversations need to be professional and mindful of people’s boundaries.
Does intent impact sexual harassment?
Would Kaley’s comment still be sexual harassment if she didn’t mean to? The comment may be uncomfortable but Kaley meant no harm, she felt this was okay since they were close work friends.
The answer is yes.
When identifying sexual harassment, it is the impact that it had on the person who faced the sexual harassment and not the intention with which the behaviour was done by the person perpetuating it.
Due to the culture of normalising sexual harassment and how behaviour can be perceived differently due to diversity, the focus of sexual harassment is on the impact of the behaviour and not the intention with which the behaviour was done.
Comments such as “I did not know this was sexual harassment”, “I did not mean to” or “It was just light-hearted” don’t change the impact of inappropriate behaviour at the workplace.
While Kaley may not have meant to make Huma feel sexually uncomfortable or cross personal boundaries, the impact was still felt by Huma.
How does sexual harassment impact the workplace?
Survivors of sexual harassment face an impact on their mental health and their careers. A 2019 study found that 17% of persons facing sexual harassment resigned and 8% were fired from their jobs. Survivors may also quit to actively avoid working with or continuing to face harassment from the harasser.
At an organisational scale, such incidents create an uncomfortable and unsafe work environment. Sexual harassment decreases labour productivity by 43.1% and also increases the intention of quitting by 15.2%, hence impacting overall productivity and attrition in the organisation due to poor work culture.
What role can organisations play in preventing sexual harassment?
At an organisational level, creating structures to prevent, prohibit, and redress incidents is essential to establishing a safe workplace.
Organisations can begin with the Anti- Sexual Harassment Policy that prohibits all forms of sexual harassment in the workplace, clarifying and setting standards for appropriate workplace behaviour.
Awareness through regular training clarifies as well as engages with employees regarding what sexual harassment at the workplace can look like and how to navigate these scenarios. Organisations can make use of interesting ways to engage with employees using toolkits that contain posters and articles about various topics and conducting learning circles that go beyond compliance and discuss topics such as consent, biases and boundaries at the workplace.
Redressal mechanisms are essential in creating consequences for any deviation from the organisation’s standard of behaviour. It is important for these redressal mechanisms to ensure effective implementation by strictly adhering to principles and natural justice and making decisions in a balanced and unbiased manner. This is something organisations can ensure by actively building competencies with capacity-building sessions conducted for members of these redressal mechanisms, which discuss the importance of being unbiased and gaining a thorough understanding.
In Huma’s scenario, Huma can reach out to the redressal body at her organisation since she faced sexual harassment.