Three in five employers do not take sexual harassment and discrimination complaints seriously, according to research released by JobWatch last week.
The figures are staggering, and it’s why we wanted to highlight Hayley Foster’s excellent “mini keynote” filmed for our app The Keynotes, on transforming how we prevent and respond to sexual harassment.
** Disclaimer: This article and published video expresses Hayley Foster’s personal opinions and is based on content shared on the 30th June 2023. The content is intended to provide a summary and general overview. Comments that are related to compliance are not intended to be comprehensive nor do they constitute legal advice. You should seek legal or other professional advice before acting or relying on the comments.
Hayley is an executive leader, coach and lifelong advocate for the elimination of gender-based discrimination and violence. Through her work, she has listened to countless sexual harassment and assault survivors share their stories of disempowerment, humiliation, and trauma. She knows that leaders are pivotal in seeing real results on addressing the issue, and making workplaces safer for all. She also knows the incredible courage it takes to share these stories, often coming at great personal cost.
“What I know from my work is that survivors of sexual harassment and assault have done far too much of the heavy lifting when it comes to eliminating predatory behaviour,” she shares during her keynote.
“And now it’s our turn as leaders (whether we ourselves have been personally impacted by sexual harassment and assault or not) to shoulder the burden.”
As Hayley outlines, there are three key aspects to dealing with sexual harassment and sexual assault at work. First, leaders need to be clear about the problem. Second, leaders needs to use their influence to get the commitment needed to stop the behaviour, and third, leaders need to take practical action. She believes that with these steps in place, we can eradicate sexual harassment in our workplaces and communities.
On the first step for leaders, dealing with the problem, Hayley urges leaders to be clear about what sexual harassment, to know prevalent it is, and just why it is a problem.
“In every, single case of sexual harassment and assault, you will see that there has been a real or perceived imbalance of power to begin with, and that this imbalance of power has been exploited by the person perpetrating the behaviour,” she says.
“Whether it’s physical strength, gender, age, cultural background, wealth or status, you will see the person perpetrating the behaviour will hold more real or perceived power than the person they have targeted. Usually in more ways than one.
“Don’t get distracted by all the noise that sexual harassment and assault are about anything else: an inability to understand what’s acceptable, and inability to control one’s sexual desires, the promiscuity of the person being targeted, and so on and so forth.”
On influencing senior leaders to commit to action, Hayley says that given sexual harassment and assault represents an abuse of power, the most influential people in the organisation need to be on board to set and hold the line. From the CEO to the board, they need to redefine norms, set expectations, create a system of accountability and issue a zero tolerance approach for sexual harassment and assault.
Working with boards and senior leadership teams and community leaders is where Hayley spends most of her time and energy, but she says other leaders can do this too by empowering those in their organisations and communities to have the knowledge of what sexual harassment and assault actually are, to understand how prevalent it is and what it costs individuals and organisations, and to know that there are things that can be done practically to eradicate it.
“In my experience, most organisational leaders will come on board once you’ve done these things. However, for the more reluctant of them, I find the best way to get them to come around is to show them how not doing these things will cost them dearly in the medium to long term, in terms of poor culture and underperformance, and that by neglecting to put in place some simple preventative measures, they will be exposing themselves to the occurrence of more of the pointy end of sexual harassment and assault incidents, to legal action from individuals, the AHRC and the Fair Work Ombudsman, and to substantial reputational harm.
“Interestingly, I find this last one to be the most effective in the face of resistance.”
From there, Hayley says leaders must take practical action.
“It is important to recognise that different organisations will have various strengths and opportunities when it comes to putting in place measures to prevent and respond to sexual harassment, and some will be further along the journey than others.
“It is, therefore essential that when you’re developing a plan for an organisation, that you do so in a collaborative way with the people and systems leaders in that organisation, and that you leverage off existing policies, procedures and processes.”
Practical things organisations can do
Hayley shares five practical things organisations can do.
- Develop initial sexual harassment policy to form the basis of one which can be later updated, subject to consultation. This should also involve putting in place appropriate support mechanisms for people impacted by sexual harassment or assault who may come forward. A guide for developing a sexual harassment policy can be found on the Australian Government’s Respect@Work website, and various templates are available, for example on the AICD website. It’s a good ideas to start here first, because the organisation needs to be ready to respond to staff coming forward once the conversation is started.
- Next, it is recommended that the leaders and key personnel involved in managing and supporting staff or other personnel are provided with some quality training on what sexual harassment is, and how to respond to it in a best-practice, trauma-informed way. Again, this has to come before opening the conversation broader, as the way in which the organisation responds to individuals who come forward will be crucial to its success in changing culture. There are a number of training organisations offering best-practice in-person and online training in understanding and responding to sexual harassment, including but not limited to the ARHC, Full Stop Australia, and Blue Knot.
- Once these measures have been taken, leaders need to develop a clear plan of communication to all staff on their commitment to eliminating sexual harassment and ensuring anyone impacted by sexual harassment will be afforded compassion, confidentiality, and appropriate support. This communication needs to be genuine, resolute, and reinforced by management and other leaders throughout the organisation.
- The fourth key step involves obtaining an honest picture of what’s happening in the organisation regarding people’s experiences, observations, and suggestions for improving the organisation. This also doubles as a baseline measurement from which to assess annual progress. Importantly, the staff survey must be anonymous. It can be done by developing a specific survey or adapting an existing staff culture and engagement one. The AHRC has a helpful template for this. When distributing the survey, organisational leaders need to clarify that it will not be used as a mechanism to obtain formal complaints and that there will be no adverse action resulting from honest participation in the survey. It should, however, be communicated that people are encouraged to come forward and a range of options for people to do this safely and confidentially should be provided. It should be acknowledged that undertaking the survey may bring discomfort and/or distress for participants, and avenues for professional support should be made available. In some circumstances, I have found it beneficial to run additional consultation measures such as listening tours and so forth — but please not, these need to be managed expertly.
- Last but not least comes an iterative process of implementation and review. The staff survey results should be used to develop and implement a strategy. This will be multifaceted but will involve elements of organisational-wide training on sexual harassment, internal communication strategies, and adaptation of existing human resource and work, health and safety policies and procedures. It will also involve consultation on a review of the organisation’s sexual harassment policy to obtain vital input and buy-in from everyone in the organisation going forward. These adaptations can happen progressively as part of regular process improvements. In time, however, through improved organisational responses to formal and informal reports of sexual harassment, along with regular communication, upskilling, and progress review, the organisation will be well on its way to eradicating this insidious behaviour.
You can learn more about The Keynotes here, an app by Women’s Agenda for leaders featuring more than 40 ready-to-stream ‘mini keynote’ addresses from key female leaders and gamechangers. Please get in contact if you are interested in learning about subscriptions to the app for your organisation.