6 Effective Ways for Preventing Workplace Harassment

Описание: If you think about bullying, you might imagine school kids picking on each other during recess. Or maybe your mind goes to teenagers cyberbullying someone on social media.

Whatever the case is, your initial thought probably doesn’t go to bullying in the workplace. That’s because it has a different term, known as harassment. After I say that, you can probably think of some instances of this behavior. In fact, 35% of people experience workplace harassment.

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Because this behavior has negative outcomes for both employees and your company, it’s necessary to prevent it from occurring in the first place. As a manager, it can be hard to ensure that it doesn’t happen at all because you can’t control what everyone says or does. However, there are steps you can take to at least limit how often it does occur.


While it might sound simple, the first step is to educate staff about what workplace harassment is. Surprisingly, not everyone knows what constitutes harassment. 34% of workers don’t know what behaviors create a hostile environment. And 32% were unaware that jokes could qualify as harassment. If people don’t know what it is, they won’t be able to recognize when it happens or prevent it from occurring.

Providing training programs is the easiest way for companies to educate staff about what harassment is. Yet many don’t offer it. In fact, one in three companies don’t provide anti-harassment training. It won’t be easy for people to avoid workplace harassment if they don’t know enough about it. Training programs do more than just tell people what harassment is. They also include quizzes, so managers can confirm that their staff is learning and understanding the topics discussed.

Managers also need to set a zero-tolerance policy. It’s one thing for people to understand how to prevent workplace harassment, but it’s another to do it. If management doesn’t enforce a prevention policy, then staff won’t take the training seriously. Out of 64% of people who made reports, only half of them saw the issue get investigated. But harassers should receive consequences that align with the severity of their actions. This sets the precedent so employees know that your company won’t tolerate any harassment.

Of course, it would be nice to not have any negative instances to begin with. Managers need to promote a healthy environment where people will want to show each other respect. There’s truth to the phrase that everything starts from the top-down. A Harvard Business Review study of over 20,000 employees found that respect from leaders was the most important aspect to encourage commitment and engagement. When both managers and colleagues show this respect, it builds community while also decreasing bullying and harassment.

Even in a healthy environment, some instances of harassment can slip through the cracks. Because of this, your company needs to provide a person of contact for those who witness or experience it. At least 15% of people are unsure how or where to report harassment. But by identifying this individual, your staff will know who to go to if they have questions, concerns, or need to make a report. And of course, that person needs to have formal training to handle these incidents so they can prevent them from happening again.

When people make these reports, your company needs to be fair with the outcomes. Investigating what happened is necessary so that the harasser receives the appropriate consequences. In some cases, legal action may be necessary. But other times, punishment doesn’t need to be so severe. Being fair with reports also applies to the victim. Shockingly, 71% of sexual harassment charges also included retaliation allegations. This means that the victim received some form of punishment when they reported the situation to their company. By punishing the victim instead of their harasser would have the opposite effect of preventing workplace harassment. People would think that they can get away with hurting others if they know they won’t get in trouble. And victims wouldn’t want to make reports if they fear that they’ll face consequences instead.

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