The easy answer is that they should report it or challenge the perpetrator, and support the victim.
However in our experience, whether this will actually happen largely depends on the culture of the organisation.
There are many companies where discriminatory remarks are not challenged and are therefore allowed. There are many reasons for this, whether it is management not knowing how to act, an unwillingness to stick your head above the trenches, or a mistaken belief that tackling it is somehow ‘woke’.
Often good performers are not tackled if they make such remarks, likely because the employer is scared of upsetting their golden goose.
However, to state the bleeding obvious, all of these are very dangerous for the organisation in terms of legal cases. Not only that, there is also a significantly increased risk of high staff turnover and poor morale as people would rather leave than make a stand – which can be far more costly than the odd Tribunal even though these outcomes are often not linked by management to the organisation’s culture because they are unseen and difficult to measure.
Changing such a culture needs to be organisation led, it is really hard for an individual to do so and if they try they are often labelled as trouble makers.
The good news is that this is one of the few areas of culture change that is easy for employers to rectify. Training managers and ideally also their teams along with good communication is all it takes.
Where such behaviour has been accepted in the past but the employer now wants to change that, a ‘line in the sand’ conversation may need to take place.
For a low cost solution to guide you through this important issue why not try our 40-minute ‘banter and behaviour in the workplace’ e-learning course? We assure you it will be £49.95 well spent!
The course discusses the main types of discrimination, with examples, along with a proven method of tackling those who make comments that go a bit too far that doesn’t involve sacking half your workforce! It also goes into a bit more detail about having a ‘line in the sand’ conversation.
See below for further details, including a 2-minute demo that discusses the learning points from a swimming pool legal case where lifeguards made lewd comments about a female customer.
Banter & Behaviour in the Workplace
This new e-learning course describes the various forms of harassment and discrimination in an easy-to-understand format so organisations can appreciate where the bar is at work between acceptable behaviour and that which is likely to lead to a grievance or successful Tribunal claim.
Please contact us if you would like to discuss the course, which was developed in partnership with the excellent e-aspire e-learning specialist, in more detail. We would love to hear from you about this or any other HR matters.