Training has to be part of larger dialogue ensuring appropriate culture change
I was chatting with a colleague — a female HR director — about a conversation she had with other business leaders, all men. She mentioned a word they had used to describe something that was happening in the office at that time. It was a cuss word with serious sexual connotations. I know her to be a person who doesn’t even use swear words so I asked, out of curiosity, if she felt comfortable about it.
It seemed that many conversations she was a part of involved usage of such language, and she could not really afford to object, even in the mildest way: “It will affect my relationship with the business leaders, which I have worked very hard to build. They will not be as friendly with me, if I object. So, I bear with it.”
This is not a stand-alone case. I have come across many women describing variations of a similar experience they may have encountered:
•An adult joke, sometimes with the woman colleague being a character in the joke itself.
•Someone complimenting a person’s figure and curves in a way that feels more uncomfortable than a compliment.
•Standing too close.
•Trying to give a hug when you are only on “handshake” terms.
•Behaving inappropriately at an office party, under the pretext of “Oh, I was drunk.”
•The famous roving eye.
So here’s the problem, and there are two: Firstly, a safe workplace does not just mean safety from “sexual harassment” — it is also safety from “gross acts of insensitivity.”
Secondly, most women just grin and bear it, not because they are OK with it but because:
•male colleagues will take offence at the feedback
•it may seem “too trivial” so “why make an issue out of it”
•they may feel they will be tagged as “trouble-makers” or called names
•it might impact how the “establishment” sees them and their future at the organization
•they may fear alienation and ridicule by colleagues
•they may fear losing the relationship itself if the colleague is a friend
•if the trespasser is a “senior,” there may be an impact on work and career opportunities
•if the women are senior executive members, then their leadership positions and peer acceptance in the executive circle will be at stake.
Organizations, as a solution, offer only two extremes: Ignore it or file a sexual harassment complaint. It is the lack of anything in between that should be questioned.
At some organizations, the most that happens is a round of sexual harassment policy sessions for employees. These are a one-time affair and do nothing to address the day-to-day nuances of the matter.
At many organizations, even that is missing.
A safe place to work needs to have the right culture before it needs compliance.
Having been in HR, I have unfortunately witnessed HR professionals discuss what are meant to be confidential harassment cases as party jokes within the team. Just the other day, one of my HR peers was sharing how his boss, the head of HR, talks about women in a derogatory manner, behind closed doors.
Not everyone in HR is like that, but there is a definite gap.
So firstly, chief people officers have to start sensitizing their own teams first. We cannot assume that just because HR has the formal ownership, every HR person is naturally geared for a responsibility like that.
Secondly, sexual harassment training has to be a small part of a larger dialogue:
•Dialogues that build a common organizational understanding of what is OK and what is not.
•Dialogues that discuss scenarios of what a “no” looks like, and how we can respect it.
•Dialogues that bring out the discomforts and grudges, and make candour safe.
Many of these require very strong facilitation skills (not the ones that are powered by PowerPoint presentations).
Organizations must invest in developing such facilitators internally — because these dialogues have to be continuous and sustained.
That is the only way culture gets built.
Thirdly, realize that a sexual harassment policy is a necessary but not sufficient redressal mechanism system — there has to be something in between — for example, a council of the wisest (note, I didn’t say most-senior) people both in and outside the organization who can facilitate a conversation, when the need arises.
This is for when a woman thinks it is not harassment but it is still something she does not want to ignore; to ensure she doesn’t have to choose between tolerating an indignity just because she thinks it is not big enough to file a sexual harassment charge.
I want to put a strong caveat here. Unfortunately, in cases when the transgressor is a senior executive, human resources is not always completely neutral. Sometimes they are given the task of “managing the situation.” (Not all organizations are like that — thankfully, there are a few brave ones out there.)
An in-between mechanism should make it easier for women to share daily discomforts, and not be a way to “manage” and underplay a transgression by a good performer or senior person.
Our endeavours to build a safe workplace for women can never be complete until we build an organization where it is safe for women to say no.
Swati Jena is the founder and CEO of GhostWritersWorld. For more information, visit www.ghostwritersworld.com.
