As any manager knows, ensuring your team’s wellbeing is tough work but reaps rich dividends. Sometimes, however, it can be difficult to decide how to respond when an employee on your team approaches you with a sensitive issue. An example of this is an issue of sexual harassment.
Let’s say you are conducting your regular 1:1s with each member on your team. When Zeenat joins her call with you, she seems a bit distracted. You finish discussing tasks and timelines ahead, and have some time to spare. Since you couldn’t make it to the recent offsite, you ask her how it went.
This is when Zeenat becomes uncharacteristically awkward. After a minute of silence, she tells you that it didn’t go well for her because there was a small incident. She brushes it off, but when you ask for details, you realise it is a case of sexual harassment.
How you respond next can make a major impact on Zeenat’s wellbeing, and also shape team dynamics. Here are a few ways we recommend you can help to take the conversation forward in a fair yet empathetic manner.
Give benefit of doubt
While confiding in you signals tremendous trust, it is quite likely that the complainant is deeply worried about how they are going to be assessed professionally in the future.
Giving them the benefit of doubt doesn’t mean you agree to everything they have confided in you. What it could mean is:
- Empathising that they’re going through a tough time
- Reassuring that reporting it will not backfire professionally
Encourage formal reporting
It’s possible that the complainant brings to your attention an issue with an employee on the same team. While it may seem most expeditious to take the respondent aside and counsel them, or to get both employees on the table to sort issues out, this approach is not advisable. This is because addressing complaints informally puts the Complainant in an extremely uncomfortable position.
It can also result in legal miscompliance. As per the PoSH law, any sexual harassment complaint at the workplace is solely the PoSH IC’s jurisdiction. This is regardless of whether it’s a minor, one-time incident or a repeat occurrence. Once you’ve heard the Complainant out, express your support and explain to them that it’s in the company’s best interests (and their own) to report the matter formally.
This means encouraging the complainant to approach the PoSH IC with a written complaint. You can assist the complainant in writing this complaint, or approaching the PoSH IC on their behalf as an initial step.
Offer structured support
Often, you may want to extend support but you may not be sure how to offer it in a way that is fair and within your means. Structured support can be helpful. This means offering support at specific times during the process.
At the beginning, it can look like this:
- Hearing the complainant out, reassuring them of their safety and your absolute confidentiality, encouraging them to file formally.
Once they decide to file formally, you can:
- Let them know they can take time off to draft the complaint if needed
- Offer to approach the IC on their behalf as an initial step
Once the IC has taken over the case:
- Coordinate with the IC on appropriate interim support options
- Report any cases of confidentiality breach to the IC
Sexual harassment is one of the most under-reported crimes around the world. One of the top reasons women don’t come forward is the belief that they will be doubted and castigated for raising their voice. Their belief is often reiterated by the way sexual harassment is reported in media, portrayed in films, and spoken about socially.
As a manager, your support is critical to the complainant as well as the company. It can also set the tone for how employees treat each other going forward as well, whether at the workplace or informally.