Sexual Harassment Training: Educating executives about impact of workplace harassment and bullying

The original plan for this article was simply to make readers aware that a U.S. and international movement exists to combat workplace bullying and sexual harassment, a problem EA professionals routinely encounter. However, strategies for repositioning EAP services detailed in Sheila Monaghan's article ("Developing an EAP Strategy") in the previous issue of the Journal of Employee Assistance compel us to suggest that EAPs can best serve their employer clients by embracing workforce health advocacy and workplace harassment training workshops and seminars as a unique niche, or "brand." Solutions to the hostile work environment dilemma might partially define the "cause for action" harassment training program courses that EA professionals are uniquely qualified to deliver to organizations.

EA professionals are familiar with individuals who present a host of stress-related complaints caused by their hostile work environment. We refer here to cases in which an employee identifies ongoing exploitative or abusive sexual harassment interactions with a boss or co-worker as the source of his/her stress. Remarkably, one in six U.S. workers suffers such relationships, which damage psychological health while eroding overall class productivity.

We call this phenomenon workplace bullying and sex harassment when the mistreatment is repeated, health-harming, and illegitimate. Bullying is a sub-lethal, non-physical course of violence, psychological in both its execution and its impact on targeted individuals (of those self-identified as bullied, 41 percent are clinically depressed, while 30 percent of women and 21 percent of men suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder). Bullying's illegitimacy refers to the use of destructive interpersonal tactics that interfere with work performance--that is, bullying undermines accomplishment of the employer's business interests. Bullies put their need to control others above the employer's genuine goals.

In the United States, Great Britain, and Australia, the vast majority of sex harassment bullies (70 to 90 percent) are supervisors and managers. Researchers in one U.K. study credited the importation of American command-and-control management style for the rise in bullying, but some people are predisposed to mistreat others, regardless of workplace culture or sexual harassment training courses. For the majority of otherwise good people who become bullies, however, title power elicits the darker, crueler side we all possess but few manifest. When pressure is on to meet profit goals or efficiencies (especially in cases with fewer seminar staff), managers are expected to deliver course results without regard for human consequences. The fiscal bottom line is paramount.

A minority of bullies choose to humiliate their targets in public workshop settings. Though these "Screaming Meanies" fit the stereotypical image of a sex harassment bully, they are statistically rare. More dangerous and insidious are the tactics employed by the "Constant Critic" who distorts the performance appraisal process in closed door classes, attempting to reconstruct the target's personality and competence. Critics are masters of plausible deniability--with no witnesses, they can lie about their misconduct with impunity.

Adult targets of bullying are different from their schoolyard counterparts. Our research shows that targets are selected because of their refusal to be subservient ("insubordination" is the most frequent complaint about them), their superior work or social skills (which threaten the bully who lacks emotional intelligence), or their ethical whistle-blowing. Women are the primary targets of bullies (in 77 percent of cases), though charges of sexual harassment would apply to only about a quarter of bullying cases. While women are as likely as men to be bullies, female bullies are more likely to target women (in more than four of five cases) than are their male counterparts (who target women 69 percent of the time).

Responsiveness to accusations of bullying increases when complainants enjoy protected status as defined by federal or state anti-discrimination laws, and the provision of harassment training program classes or courses but if both the perpetrator and target of sexual harassment are protected or the target is not a member of a protected group, these laws do not apply. Even when bullying conduct is verified and EA professionals recognize the harm it is creating in the workshop or seminar, sex harassment that is not illegal often is ignored. Thus, most bullying is not addressed by current law, though it is two to three times more prevalent than illegal forms of sex harassment and significantly more damaging to a target's mental health than sexual harassment.

Despite sexual harassment and bullying's prevalence, severity, and impact on workers and work organizations, internal investigations nearly always conclude that it is merely a clash in personalities between bully and target. Apologists for bullying mouth a variety of glib justifications--e.g., "that's why they call it 'work'" and "it's just tough management."

Remarkably, the targets alone bear the costs of their unsolicited misery by experiencing stress-related complications. In 75 percent of sex harassment bullying classes, targets either leave their jobs to stop the bullying or are "constructively discharged" as part of the bullying.

Source: Ruth Namie  Link