Sexual Harassment Training
No person deserves to experience sexual harassment in the workplace. As an organization, providing sexual harassment training to employees will help prevent sexual assault and the budding of a hostile workplace.
Sexual assault training and harassment training will help employees not only recognize and stop the harassment for themselves, but it will also help them look out for their coworkers. Using an elearning software, like Lesson.ly, to build sexual assault training materials can well inform employees and you can avoid awkwardly lecturing with sexual assault training scenarios or spending two hours of work time showing sexual assault training videos. Take your sexual assault training from 2015 and your dusty anti-harassment policies and revamp them with elearning. With elearning, you can clarify exactly what harassment in the workplace consists of, how to prevent it, how to report it, and provide methods of coping.
The definition of sexual harassment is the unwelcomeness one feels from the sexual advances received from another. This includes verbal innuendos, jokes, and request for sexual favors. In the workplace, when an employee’s role factors (duties, promotions, assignments, raises, etc.) depend on that employee’s willingness to accept or perform sexual actions, it is also sexual harassment.
Here are some more types of sexual harassment:
Voyeurism – This is the ‘Peeping Tom’ in an environment. This is someone in the workplace who seeks out women or men using the bathroom or changing in a dressing room. With technology today, cyber voyeurism is now possible. For example, someone who hacks into a computer’s camera to watch that person without their knowledge.
Flashers – These are people who show their genitalia to passerbys. It’s highly unlikely to have a flasher in the workplace, but outside of the workplace, employees should know exactly how to report it. As an employer, consider the traumatization that might be involved and offer the victim (your employee) time to adjust.
Obscene digital communication – This includes any kind of communication (phone calls, instant messaging) that an individual uses to make disturbing comments to another individual. This is not restricted to sexual language, but also consists of bullying.
Pornography – Is photos, video, or printed material depicting adults or children with exposed private parts or performing sexual acts. Pornography is absolutely not allowed in the workplace. Firewalls should be constructed for the computer systems to prevent access to any pornographic material on the internet.
Prostitution – The exchange of sexual favors for money.
In addition to recognizing these types of harassment, every employee, especially managers, should learn how to support those who have been victims of harassment.
Even if it doesn’t happen in the workplace, sympathy plays a big role in helping victims get better. To be able to support a victim, one should be able to understand the reactions to harassment, and know how to communicate with a victim. We’ve listed a few of those here:
Immediate reactions – Immediately following harassment of any kind, a person can become very emotional with anger or sadness, and on the opposing end, completely shocked. They may hyperventilate, fear their own personal safety, and fear the reactions of others. It’s not uncommon for victims to be unable to recall what happened if the mind is in a state of immediate suppression.
Subsequent Acute Reactions – A victim of sexual harassment can become overwhelmed with fear and trying to suppress an instance by avoiding and resisting anything that could lead to re-experiencing the trauma. They may even feel as though they are the ones to blame. Victims can become very timid and quiet, getting lost in their own unanswered questions. They can become sick, lose weight, and even use unhealthy methods to cope (drugs, alcohol, etc.).
Long Term Reactions – Long term reactions consist of feelings of shame to full blown depression. Long term victims who don’t seek help can lose trust in other people, feel detached, lose sexual interest, and become very sick emotionally and physically.
The scariest consequence of these reactions is not feeling comfortable communicating or a reporting on harassment. Even with sympathy toward a coworker who has been victimized, learning how to communicate with that person can help them recover from something so traumatic. With Lessonly, you can train on sexual harassment and how to report it, track who has accurately completed the training, and elicit feedback for improvement from learners. For example, if you need to make sure that all the leaders in an organization have taken employee harassment training, you can incorporate quiz questions and open-ended questions that require responses. You can also receive a report each morning to check the progress of each learner. Employers are obligated to train employees on harassment in the workplace or the employer could be held responsible for any harassment that occurs.