HR Answers: Sexual harassment a c-suite priority

Two recent surveys about sexual harassment suggest it will be a top priority for company leaders in 2018, but human resources professionals do not expect the increased media attention around high-profile cases to make things easier for HR.

In early December, Next Concept Human Resource Association and Waggl surveyed nearly 1,000 people, with 89 percent agreeing with the following statement: “I anticipate that preventing sexual harassment will become a greater concern of company leadership in 2018, given the recent wave of high-profile cases in the news.” The responses were aligned across various demographics including age, gender and job function. For respondents 61 years and older and for people from large for-profit corporations with 20,000 employees or more, a full 94 percent agreed that sexual harassment will become a greater priority in the coming year.

As a follow-up question, participants were asked whether they agreed with this statement: “I believe that there is room for improvement at my organization for minimizing sexual harassment in the workplace.” In aggregate, 58 percent of participants agreed, but within these responses, there were some interesting demographic splits. For example, only 53 percent of men felt there was room for improvement, in comparison with 60 percent of women. Among respondents 51 to 60 years old only 51 percent agreed, in comparison with 64 percent of respondents 31 to 40 years of age.

 

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