[{"innerBlocks":[],"name":"core\/freeform","postId":2377,"blockType":{"name":"core\/freeform","keywords":[],"attributes":{"content":{"type":"string","source":"raw"},"lock":{"type":"object"}},"providesContext":[],"usesContext":[],"selectors":[],"supports":{"className":false,"customClassName":false,"reusable":false},"styles":[],"variations":[],"apiVersion":3,"title":"Classic","description":"Use the classic WordPress editor.","category":"text"},"originalContent":"During Amy Newman\u2019s nearly decade-long career in human resources, she witnessed no shortage of questionable sexual behavior in the workplace.

\u201cPeople participated in affairs that I don\u2019t think they would have if there wasn\u2019t a power dynamic. There is no such thing as consensual sex when there is a power relationship,\u201d said Newman, now a senior lecturer of management communication at Cornell University and the author of \u201cBuilding Leadership Character.\u201d \u201cManagement knew about it and didn\u2019t do anything.\u201d

At CTIS, a Tampa, Fla., cable television installation and service company with 225 employees, HR manager Cecilia Brandon said inappropriate workplace behavior, including flirting between staffers, is common. But what often is considered harmless has at times turned into larger issues that resulted in employee complaints.

Also in this series:<\/b>
\u2022 Sexual harassment in the professional workplace: Behind the research<\/a>
\u2022 10 key findings: Sexual harassment in the professional workplace<\/a>
\u2022 Wealth management fares the worst in broad study of sexual harassment <\/a>
\u2022 Banks wrestle with sense of futility on sexual harassment <\/a>
\u2022 Does Silicon Valley's 'bro culture' pervade IT elsewhere?<\/a>
\u2022 Sexual harassment is a bigger problem than accountants think<\/a>
\u2022 A #MeToo backlash is brewing in banking<\/a>
\u2022 From strip clubs to massages: When clients are sexually inappropriate<\/a>

These cases demonstrate a difficult task for HR professionals: how to handle not only clear cases of workplace sexual harassment, but also other inappropriate sexual behavior or misconduct that crosses the ethical line \u2014 behavior that is often ignored or even initiated by senior management.

While there may be widespread inappropriate behavior in the workplace, much of it does not rise to the level of harassment in a legal sense. Under the legal definition, the misconduct must explicitly or implicitly violate a term or condition of an individual\u2019s employment or a factor used as the basis for employment decisions; unreasonably interfere with work performance; or create an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment, said Dave Ulrich, director of the Human Resource Executive Program at the University of Michigan.

That legal threshold likely is the reason for a large discrepancy in a new SourceMedia survey of 409 HR and benefits professionals: Although half of HR professionals (52%) said they believe the level of workplace sexual harassment in their industry is low overall, the vast majority (70%) admitted they either are aware that others were the subjects of unwelcome sexual conduct in the workplace or that they\u2019ve witnessed such conduct themselves. The most common of those behaviors were inappropriate jokes, personal questions or innuendo (62%), suggestive text messages or emails (27%) and persistent unwelcome advances (24%).

Overall, the survey, titled \u201cSexual Harassment in the Professional Workplace,\u201d had more than 3,000 respondents across a range of white-collar industries, including banking, wealth management, health care and capital markets.

The survey found that the problem of sexual misconduct is so widespread that even HR professionals are not immune to it. More than 20% of HR and benefits professionals polled said they, too, have been a subject of unwelcome sexual conduct in the workplace. That\u2019s higher than the average found across other professions; 16% of the survey respondents overall said the same.

HR professionals cited two factors as being the most important in curbing sexual harassment: changing workplace culture (75%) and commitment from upper management (69%). These are so vital that HR professionals were significantly more likely to say those two changes are needed than were survey respondents in other professions.

\u201cMore training is more of the same,\u201d said Johnny Taylor, president and chief executive of the Society of Human Resource Management. \u201cTraining, investigations \u2014 we\u2019ve checked those boxes. We\u2019ve got to get HR focused on culture.\u201d

Many HR professionals, aware that poor workplace culture is too often enabled from the top down, are readying for a cultural transformation of sorts \u2014 one where they begin to truly advocate for workers and start to act as the employer\u2019s conscience. It\u2019s a role, they say, that has largely been ignored until now.

\u201cHR has to put in place mechanisms so that we can really be fully, fully aware of what\u2019s happening within the culture of the organization and determine how we are going to define that culture,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cWhat is our cultural tolerance for these behaviors? Forget the law \u2014 because the law says [some] behaviors are legally acceptable \u2014 but for the behaviors that don\u2019t rise to those levels, what is acceptable? Someone has to own culture and it should be HR.\u201d

A historical problem<\/b>

The HR professionals who participated in the SourceMedia survey come from many different industries, from banking to health care. The primary reasons they cited for the problem of workplace sexual misconduct are: senior management being mostly male, \u201cgood old boy\u201d networks and bad company culture. Some also point to a lack of policy enforcement by management \u2014 or even processes that protect upper management and high performers and help the company avoid liability.

\u201cAs much as we hate to admit it, there is a significant amount of office politics in most companies,\u201d Brandon said. \u201cThere are instances where HR professionals are encouraged or directed as to what the outcome of the investigation should be that would be most advantageous to the company and its key players.\u201d

Though she doesn\u2019t have such interference from her current employer \u2014 \u201cownership is extremely supportive of my position and recommendations,\u201d she said \u2014 that hasn\u2019t always been her experience. \u201cIn a company I worked for in previous years, there were a few instances where our highest-producing sales representatives had repeated violations. Upper-level management did not handle the matter properly in many ways and made sure my department was aware of the consequences of the loss,\u201d she said, noting it impacted her decisions on handling the matter.

Upper management influence \u2014 and poor behavior \u2014 is likely why just 25% of HR professionals in SourceMedia\u2019s survey said they think reports of unwelcome sexual conducts are \u201calways\u201d dealt with fairly and appropriately, Brandon said.

Ulrich agreed, saying that the #MeToo movement is beginning to move the needle when it comes to making lasting changes to company culture.

\u201cThe harassment and hostile work environment are generally not created by HR, but by line managers, senior leaders in positions of influence and\/or a cultural heritage,\u201d he said. \u201cHR has a difficult job to confront these bad situations and create a healthy work environment and to root out bad behaviors. Transparency is a good thing to enable this action.\u201d

SourceMedia data supports this too. Of HR professionals polled, 40% said the #MeToo movement will have some impact on their industry this year, 24% said it will have a little impact and 10% said it will have a high impact. Just 13% said it would have no impact.

But #MeToo is just the beginning, according to many HR managers. The movement has brought awareness to the problem; now it\u2019s HR\u2019s turn to start making permanent culture changes. That involves better training and investigation, but more important it also means standing up to senior management and leading them to a better way of tackling this issue.

\u201cIt may sound sophomoric,\u201d Taylor said, but at some companies involved in harassment cases, \u201cpeople say \u2018everyone knew,\u2019 but sometimes it doesn\u2019t get to senior management or HR and it doesn\u2019t get addressed. CEOs and management have to empower HR to be great, and empower them to be ethical.\u201d

Responses to the SourceMedia survey indicate that incidents of inappropriate workplace behavior are lower in companies where a strong culture \u2014 one that is led and exemplified by top executives \u2014 is in effect. Many respondents \u2014 including Colleen O\u2019Leary, director of human resources at Community, Counseling and Correctional Services, a nonprofit organization with roughly 600 employees in three states \u2014 said in written comments that a supportive and respectful culture, led by management, is a primary reason for the low incidences of harassment at their companies.

\u201cWe have a strong moral and ethical backbone, and if you want to stay with the company, you have to believe in it,\u201d O\u2019Leary said. That\u2019s echoed by the firm\u2019s CEO \u2014 people look up to him as \u201ca father figure\u201d and don\u2019t want to let him down, she said.

\u201cEverybody that gets hired here has that same feeling. Workplace culture is so important. We would not be where we are without our CEO and the tone that he sets,\u201d she said, noting that the CEO talks to each new employee at orientation about the importance of respect and integrity.

It\u2019s vital for HR professionals to uphold a company\u2019s values as well, O\u2019Leary said.

Promoting workplace culture \u201cis the most important thing I do,\u201d she said. \u201cYou embody it, you model it, you live it and show it and breathe it. If you don\u2019t buy into it, you shouldn\u2019t be in the business.\u201d

(SourceMedia, which publishes Employee Benefit News, conducted its online survey of more than 3,000 professionals across multiple industries in the first quarter of 2018. The study, \u201cSexual Harassment in the Professional Workplace,\u201d is a joint project of SourceMedia\u2019s editorial and research departments.)<\/i>","saveContent":"During Amy Newman\u2019s nearly decade-long career in human resources, she witnessed no shortage of questionable sexual behavior in the workplace.

\u201cPeople participated in affairs that I don\u2019t think they would have if there wasn\u2019t a power dynamic. There is no such thing as consensual sex when there is a power relationship,\u201d said Newman, now a senior lecturer of management communication at Cornell University and the author of \u201cBuilding Leadership Character.\u201d \u201cManagement knew about it and didn\u2019t do anything.\u201d

At CTIS, a Tampa, Fla., cable television installation and service company with 225 employees, HR manager Cecilia Brandon said inappropriate workplace behavior, including flirting between staffers, is common. But what often is considered harmless has at times turned into larger issues that resulted in employee complaints.

Also in this series:<\/b>
\u2022 Sexual harassment in the professional workplace: Behind the research<\/a>
\u2022 10 key findings: Sexual harassment in the professional workplace<\/a>
\u2022 Wealth management fares the worst in broad study of sexual harassment <\/a>
\u2022 Banks wrestle with sense of futility on sexual harassment <\/a>
\u2022 Does Silicon Valley's 'bro culture' pervade IT elsewhere?<\/a>
\u2022 Sexual harassment is a bigger problem than accountants think<\/a>
\u2022 A #MeToo backlash is brewing in banking<\/a>
\u2022 From strip clubs to massages: When clients are sexually inappropriate<\/a>

These cases demonstrate a difficult task for HR professionals: how to handle not only clear cases of workplace sexual harassment, but also other inappropriate sexual behavior or misconduct that crosses the ethical line \u2014 behavior that is often ignored or even initiated by senior management.

While there may be widespread inappropriate behavior in the workplace, much of it does not rise to the level of harassment in a legal sense. Under the legal definition, the misconduct must explicitly or implicitly violate a term or condition of an individual\u2019s employment or a factor used as the basis for employment decisions; unreasonably interfere with work performance; or create an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment, said Dave Ulrich, director of the Human Resource Executive Program at the University of Michigan.

That legal threshold likely is the reason for a large discrepancy in a new SourceMedia survey of 409 HR and benefits professionals: Although half of HR professionals (52%) said they believe the level of workplace sexual harassment in their industry is low overall, the vast majority (70%) admitted they either are aware that others were the subjects of unwelcome sexual conduct in the workplace or that they\u2019ve witnessed such conduct themselves. The most common of those behaviors were inappropriate jokes, personal questions or innuendo (62%), suggestive text messages or emails (27%) and persistent unwelcome advances (24%).

Overall, the survey, titled \u201cSexual Harassment in the Professional Workplace,\u201d had more than 3,000 respondents across a range of white-collar industries, including banking, wealth management, health care and capital markets.

The survey found that the problem of sexual misconduct is so widespread that even HR professionals are not immune to it. More than 20% of HR and benefits professionals polled said they, too, have been a subject of unwelcome sexual conduct in the workplace. That\u2019s higher than the average found across other professions; 16% of the survey respondents overall said the same.

HR professionals cited two factors as being the most important in curbing sexual harassment: changing workplace culture (75%) and commitment from upper management (69%). These are so vital that HR professionals were significantly more likely to say those two changes are needed than were survey respondents in other professions.

\u201cMore training is more of the same,\u201d said Johnny Taylor, president and chief executive of the Society of Human Resource Management. \u201cTraining, investigations \u2014 we\u2019ve checked those boxes. We\u2019ve got to get HR focused on culture.\u201d

Many HR professionals, aware that poor workplace culture is too often enabled from the top down, are readying for a cultural transformation of sorts \u2014 one where they begin to truly advocate for workers and start to act as the employer\u2019s conscience. It\u2019s a role, they say, that has largely been ignored until now.

\u201cHR has to put in place mechanisms so that we can really be fully, fully aware of what\u2019s happening within the culture of the organization and determine how we are going to define that culture,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cWhat is our cultural tolerance for these behaviors? Forget the law \u2014 because the law says [some] behaviors are legally acceptable \u2014 but for the behaviors that don\u2019t rise to those levels, what is acceptable? Someone has to own culture and it should be HR.\u201d

A historical problem<\/b>

The HR professionals who participated in the SourceMedia survey come from many different industries, from banking to health care. The primary reasons they cited for the problem of workplace sexual misconduct are: senior management being mostly male, \u201cgood old boy\u201d networks and bad company culture. Some also point to a lack of policy enforcement by management \u2014 or even processes that protect upper management and high performers and help the company avoid liability.

\u201cAs much as we hate to admit it, there is a significant amount of office politics in most companies,\u201d Brandon said. \u201cThere are instances where HR professionals are encouraged or directed as to what the outcome of the investigation should be that would be most advantageous to the company and its key players.\u201d

Though she doesn\u2019t have such interference from her current employer \u2014 \u201cownership is extremely supportive of my position and recommendations,\u201d she said \u2014 that hasn\u2019t always been her experience. \u201cIn a company I worked for in previous years, there were a few instances where our highest-producing sales representatives had repeated violations. Upper-level management did not handle the matter properly in many ways and made sure my department was aware of the consequences of the loss,\u201d she said, noting it impacted her decisions on handling the matter.

Upper management influence \u2014 and poor behavior \u2014 is likely why just 25% of HR professionals in SourceMedia\u2019s survey said they think reports of unwelcome sexual conducts are \u201calways\u201d dealt with fairly and appropriately, Brandon said.

Ulrich agreed, saying that the #MeToo movement is beginning to move the needle when it comes to making lasting changes to company culture.

\u201cThe harassment and hostile work environment are generally not created by HR, but by line managers, senior leaders in positions of influence and\/or a cultural heritage,\u201d he said. \u201cHR has a difficult job to confront these bad situations and create a healthy work environment and to root out bad behaviors. Transparency is a good thing to enable this action.\u201d

SourceMedia data supports this too. Of HR professionals polled, 40% said the #MeToo movement will have some impact on their industry this year, 24% said it will have a little impact and 10% said it will have a high impact. Just 13% said it would have no impact.

But #MeToo is just the beginning, according to many HR managers. The movement has brought awareness to the problem; now it\u2019s HR\u2019s turn to start making permanent culture changes. That involves better training and investigation, but more important it also means standing up to senior management and leading them to a better way of tackling this issue.

\u201cIt may sound sophomoric,\u201d Taylor said, but at some companies involved in harassment cases, \u201cpeople say \u2018everyone knew,\u2019 but sometimes it doesn\u2019t get to senior management or HR and it doesn\u2019t get addressed. CEOs and management have to empower HR to be great, and empower them to be ethical.\u201d

Responses to the SourceMedia survey indicate that incidents of inappropriate workplace behavior are lower in companies where a strong culture \u2014 one that is led and exemplified by top executives \u2014 is in effect. Many respondents \u2014 including Colleen O\u2019Leary, director of human resources at Community, Counseling and Correctional Services, a nonprofit organization with roughly 600 employees in three states \u2014 said in written comments that a supportive and respectful culture, led by management, is a primary reason for the low incidences of harassment at their companies.

\u201cWe have a strong moral and ethical backbone, and if you want to stay with the company, you have to believe in it,\u201d O\u2019Leary said. That\u2019s echoed by the firm\u2019s CEO \u2014 people look up to him as \u201ca father figure\u201d and don\u2019t want to let him down, she said.

\u201cEverybody that gets hired here has that same feeling. Workplace culture is so important. We would not be where we are without our CEO and the tone that he sets,\u201d she said, noting that the CEO talks to each new employee at orientation about the importance of respect and integrity.

It\u2019s vital for HR professionals to uphold a company\u2019s values as well, O\u2019Leary said.

Promoting workplace culture \u201cis the most important thing I do,\u201d she said. \u201cYou embody it, you model it, you live it and show it and breathe it. If you don\u2019t buy into it, you shouldn\u2019t be in the business.\u201d

(SourceMedia, which publishes Employee Benefit News, conducted its online survey of more than 3,000 professionals across multiple industries in the first quarter of 2018. The study, \u201cSexual Harassment in the Professional Workplace,\u201d is a joint project of SourceMedia\u2019s editorial and research departments.)<\/i>","order":0,"get_parent":{},"attributes":[],"attributesType":{"content":{"type":"string","source":"raw"},"lock":{"type":"object"}},"dynamicContent":""}]

HR’s culture shift: Tackling workplace sexual harassment while navigating legal definitions

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