With the recent revelations that so many people in powerful positions have engaged in sexual misconduct in the workplace, there seems little doubt that sexual harassment training has failed. Nearly all organizations mandate sexual harassment training, yet high profile members from a multitude of organizations have resigned due to allegations ranging from boorish behavior to gross sexual imposition (if not worse).
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, organizations have spent $295 million on settling public sexual harassment claims in the last seven years, and that is just for claims filed with the EEOC. Moreover, it is widely estimated that the cost to settle harassment claims outside of court ranges from $75,000 to $125,000 per case.
One reason why sexual harassment training has continually failed is because most organizations view such training as “compliance training” and, consequently, only allocate 60 to 90 minutes of sexual harassment training once a year, at most. The simple truth is that organizations cannot legislate every single behavior, yet that is what they often try to do in harassment training, with policies that warn, “Don’t do this;”, or “don’t say that.” Such an unrealistic approach creates an ambiguous work environment in which no one really knows what is acceptable behavior and, when questionable or borderline behaviors do occur, no one knows how they should address those behaviors until they escalate to point at which an accusation is made.
Yet, the cause of harassment is not due to an insufficient or incomplete policy, but rather a dysfunctional organizational culture. At the root of harassment is disrespect. A one-hour training session reviewing a harassment policy that probably has not changed in years is not going to change a culture of disrespect. Instead, such training needs to focus on changing the organizational culture to one of mutual respect at all levels of the organization.
Accomplishing such a wide-sweeping change in culture, and harassment behavior, must involve an intensive, interactive employee training, not a simple rehash of existing policy. One type of training recommended by the EEOC to reduce harassment behavior is civility training (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, 2016). Like compliance training, civility training involves establishing legal and acceptable forms of behavior, but it goes beyond that by having employees define for themselves what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior and a foundation from which ambiguous behaviors can be addressed. In this way, a common understanding of respectful behavior is created from the “bottom-up”, by the employees, and not solely “top-down”, by the organization. Involving employees is an absolute must if a change in culture, and consequently a reduction in harassment behavior, is to occur.
Perhaps the largest benefit of civility training is that it creates a platform for questionable behaviors to be addressed by offended participants. The harsh reality is that harassment behavior is often initially ambiguous; the behavior may at first be innocuous, but over time, it escalates until it is no longer tolerable. I have heard attorneys admit that harassment investigations (and subsequent settlements) could have been avoided if a simple conversation had taken place early in the process. Civility training allows for that conversation because it not only establishes a common understanding of what is respectful behavior, but also institutes a common framework from which to refer to when a behavior is ambiguous. When such behavior occurs, civility training encourages employees to refer to that common understanding to determine if the questionable behavior is within or outside of the boundary of respectful behavior.
Again, at its core, harassment is about disrespect. It may not be intentional on behalf of the offender, but it is perceived to be real by the victim. Sexual Harassment training has failed because no organization can change its culture in an annual 60- or 90-minute training session. Checking the compliance training box may appease legal concerns in the short term, but it will not address the core issue of disrespect in the long term, and subsequent harassment claims and investigations will continue to cost organizations hundreds of thousands of dollars. The only way to make harassment training effective is to change the culture of the organization, not to check a box.