Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Inaction at a Cost

Currently, eight states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, New York, Virginia, and Washington), Washington, DC, and the cities of New York and Chicago have legislated mandatory workplace harassment prevention training. Training must take place at least once every two years for employers in both public and private sectors. Employers who must comply will vary among the jurisdictions based on the number of employees and other factors. Other states like Colorado, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont encourage but do not require sexual harassment training. The remaining states consider anti-harassment training a best practice. Still, employers in other jurisdictions continue to offer continuing education on this sensitive topic as a best practice.

Vector Solutions published a white paper just recently based on a study with these 10 revelations:

1. One-third of employers have dealt with either a sexual harassment or assault claim.
2. The cost of sexual assault to the US economy is $220 billion each year.
3. Invisible costs are lower productivity, absenteeism, increased health-care costs, lower morale and harm to one’s reputation.
4. Almost ¾ of all women in corporate America experience sexual harassment and/or assault at some point in their careers (that should draw a red flag!).
5. And almost 1/10 of rapes occur at the workplace (also alarming).
6. Certain professional roles are impacted at higher percentages (people working alone, employees working for tips, those in male-dominated environments or workplaces with imbalanced power structures).
7. Retaliation is faced by ¾ of those who report their experiences.
8. More than 90% end up not reporting sexual harassment (likely because of #7)
9. A little more than half (60%) feel that a claim would be fairly investigated and addressed.
10. Lack of discretion and/or accountability for harassers and those assaulting leads to a lack of trust by the victims.

All of these should encourage those to offer training, even where reporting structures are not yet required by law. Our online program allows for flexibility to learn anytime, anywhere. When it comes to online training, we believe it must be easy and accessible.