Power and Sexual Harassment

Eduardo del Buey
Foto: Cuartoscuro
La Jornada Maya

Martes 7 de agosto, 2018

On July 31, 2018, [i]CNN[/i] reported that “Sexual abuse of vulnerable women and girls by international aid workers is “endemic” and has been happening for years, with perpetrators easily moving around the sector undetected, according to a damning UK government report published Tuesday.

The inquiry heard “horrifying” stories of aid staff sexually exploiting the very people they were meant to be helping, including one homeless girl in Haiti who was given $1 by a worker for a nongovernmental organization (NGO) and raped!”

Simply turning on the news or picking up a newspaper today leads one to any number of crises involving sexual violence against women.

Sexual violence against women seems to be reaching global epidemic levels.

However, it has always existed.

Conquering soldiers have raped while the aristocracy often had its way with the lower classes. In the corporate world, managers have abused female and male employees.

This unfortunately continues.

A key reason for this ongoing brutality is that the victims have often been ostracized or punished, and management or the authorities, whether consciously or not, mostly swept allegations under the rug.

In many cases, managers and organizations responded to whistleblowers by ignoring, doubting and even firing them or, simply buying them off with promotions or money.

While rumors may have floated from time to time, lack of proof or witnesses often led perpetrators to repeat their crimes believing that they were immune from prosecution.

Those days are over.

The advent of social media has created a global network of support for hitherto isolated victims of sexual harassment or rape itself.

Web based support groups are now quick to call out allegations of sexual crimes in the public and private sectors, and their networks and the widespread reach of social media ensures that now the public will listen.

This has empowered a new generation of victim, no longer fearful of the personal risk and expense of taking on the powers that be. Rather, people, mostly women, are coming forward as these perpetrators are taken to task.

This leaves the employers of accused perpetrators in a difficult position.

Traditionally, schools of strategic communications have taught two often conflicting theses: on the one hand, get ahead of the story by admitting mistakes and taking remedial action; on the other, strive to protect the organization’s reputation. While these are not mutually exclusive, saving the reputation of an organization or a key individual has often resulted in suppressing allegations of sexual harassment - leaving the victims to fend for themselves.

Striving to protect the reputation of an organization that tacitly or explicitly allows sexual harassment today is a non-starter. The organization will quickly suffer from a loss of reputation, leading clients, employees, and investors to place their confidence elsewhere.

It will suffer no such loss if it handles the situation fairly for all sides.

Today, it is essential for any organization to ensure that it is above reproach, and that management be seen as taking quick action against activities by management or staff that can be perceived as being unacceptable or illegal.

Hence protecting the organization requires taking a proactive lead on allegations of sexual harassment and violence.

Of course, when the malfeasance takes place at the very top of the organization, the situation becomes more complex, since the perpetrators are those who ostensibly are supposed to protect the more vulnerable from intimidation or worse.

Lately, we have seen a plethora of very senior managers and officials who have had to resign from positions of influence and power as a result of such activities. Recently, NBC fired popular host Matt Lauer, and FOX News fired Bill O’Reilly. Academy Award winner Kevin Spacy was fired from “House of Cards” for past transgressions. Their activities would have gone unchallenged a few years ago. The same applies to other recent cases involving movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, and actor Bill Cosby.

How can organizations protect themselves?

First, corporate policy must be explicit and firm – zero tolerance for sexual aggression or harassment. It should define its code of conduct with clear reference to what is acceptable versus unacceptable as well as the consequences for immoral behavior. It must lay out a critical path for dealing objectively with any accusation of sexual misconduct by employees, including against top management.

Secondly, organizations should consult with and engage the services of sexual harassment specialists, either in house or on retainer. Their role would be to act as an honest broker for the victims and provide them with a safe space in which to launch their complaints and present the facts. These specialists would collate all of the information to establish patterns of unacceptable behavior and present these facts to management. Management would then have to commit to taking action.

The need for a safe space and independent adjudicators is essential, since sexual crimes are not always sexual in origin, but can be perverse manifestations of power – and the powerful have many tools with which to cover their tracks.

Lastly, employers must be mindful that there are two sides to every story. Before an alleged perpetrator can be fired, there must be a reasonable proof of guilt. Labor laws must be respected and allegations must be investigated before action is taken. While victim claims must be investigated, this fundamental principle must be respected but it must not become an excuse for inaction.

There is no doubt that these types of activities call for the same crisis management techniques as do bad service, product liability, or personal injuries to clients or the public.

Crisis management calls for the organization to have communications plans and strategies with which to deal with issues as they arise both internally and externally.

But planning is not enough. There must be a determination to execute plans in order to ensure not only that justice appears to be done but is done.

As in all aspects of crisis management, the first priority must be the victims.

Corporate culture includes what I call “hallway radio” – informal networks within the organization that carry messages of trouble long before it becomes public knowledge.

It is up to management to ensure that it tunes in to such drum beats in order to best protect employees and the organization.

Organizations everywhere have to learn how to deal with these situations quickly and effectively, and work towards keeping their reputations intact by setting zero-tolerance policies and enforcing them strictly.

Absent this, they may well disappear as public indifference becomes public opprobrium.

[b][email protected][/b]