Five Tips For Preventing Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
Preventing Sexual harassment in the
workplace is everyone’s responsibility. In the rest of this article,
we’ll outline tips to help you do so.
1. Educate Your Employees
You
should educate all your employees about Harassment at work.
They need to know the definition of sexual harassment, behaviours that are
included in this definition, and what steps they should take if they’re being
harassed. You should also tell them what to do if they notice that someone else
is a victim of harassment or if someone else has confided in them.
Provide
your employees with examples of sexual harassment and how they may look in real
life contexts. It may be the case that people are unaware they’re engaging in
sexually harassing behaviour until you provide them with examples: they may just
think they’re making a harmless joke.
2. Educate Senior Members of Staff
Just
as you’d educate your workforce, it’s just as important that you educate your
senior members of staff. Everybody has a responsibility to prevent Sexual harassment of women
at workplace and report it if they witness it. Additionally, everyone
needs to know what constitutes sexual harassment and that you won’t tolerate
any behaviour of the sort.
3. Develop a Thorough Sexual Harassment Policy
All
workplaces are expected to have a sexual harassment policy in place. This
should contain:
- An opening
statement detailing that you take a zero-tolerance approach to sexual
harassment.
- The
definition of sexual harassment. You should make it clear that sexual
harassment can happen to both men and women by people of the same sex and
people of the opposite sex.
- How employees
should make a complaint.
- How you will
handle the complaint.
- The
punishment for anybody found to have engaged in sexual harassment.
Your
policy must be relevant to all employees at all levels. It must also never
remain stagnant: you should frequently review it and monitor its effectiveness.
4. Design a Thorough Reporting Procedure
It’s
essential that you design a thorough procedure for reporting any cases of
sexual harassment. The reporting procedure must be simple and easy. You should
communicate the procedure to all employees and have it somewhere they can
easily access it, such as in the staff handbook or on a company intranet.
Your
reporting procedure must be fair and transparent. Under no circumstances must
you treat someone differently because they’ve made a complaint. You should also
keep all cases confidential unless you have an adequate reason for not doing
so, such as calling the police.
5. Create a Positive Work Culture
Having
a positive workplace culture means you have a workplace where people feel
respected and valued, where you recognise and appreciate their work, and where
there is a sense of community. Having a workplace of this kind dramatically
reduces the risk of sexual harassment.
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