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March 22, 2006
Mixed Signals on the Frequency of Sexual Harassment Training
Update: As one commentator has pointed out, part of the difference in these surveys seems to be based on whether companies are just training their supervisors as opposed to their entire workforce.
It would appear to be the better part of discretion to train the entire workforce since subordinate employees may not only need to know how to file a complaint under the sexual harassment policy, but also how to avoid engaging in sexually harassing behavior in the first place.
My friend Michael Fitzgibbon over at Thoughts from a Management Lawyer had a post yesterday about how employers are increasingly using sexual harassment training as part of developing a productive work culture. According to the figures cited by Michael:
The most notable results of the survey indicate that sexual harassment prevention training for supervisors occurs at almost at 90 percent of the businesses surveyed.
89 percent of companies train supervisors to prevent sexual harassment, which is an increase from 81 percent in 2004 and 79 percent in 2003. In addition, 49 percent of those participating in the survey said there were no complaints of sexual harassment in their companies, demonstrating a steady decrease from 2004, in which 44 percent of those polled said there were no complaints.
Of course, all this makes much sense given the fact that employers are given much incentive by employment discrimination law to provide such training in order to later have an affirmative defense in the face of a sexual harassment claim.
What puzzled me about the study that Michael cited was that I had just read another story which seemed to suggest that not enough employers were engaging in sexual harassment training. According to that survey:
Despite almost a generation of regulation and litigation, 41 percent of U.S. employers still do not provide preventive training for sexual harassment or discrimination according to a new survey, "EEO Compliance Practices Benchmarking," sponsored by TrainRight Solutions, a pioneer in web-based compliance training for the HR community.
The results come from 957 responses to a poll of 22,161 readers and subscribers to HR Matters E-Tips newsletter published by Personnel Policy Service, Inc., a leading provider of HR policy and compliance information.
The difference? Well, it's hard to say but there may be a large disconnect between higher management believing such training is actually taking place and the people on the ground who realize such training is in fact not taking place (although maybe under serious consideration by the company).
I would be particularly interested in hearing from readers on how this divergent data can be harmonized.
PS
March 22, 2006 in Commentary | Permalink
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Comments
From the sound of your post, it appears the difference in the data might be who is getting the training. For instance, perhaps the supervisors are getting the training in large numbers, but the rest of the workforce is not. My experience from my years in private practice was that employers hired the lawyers to train the supervisors, but did not train the rest of the workforce in manufacturing environments. In the office buildings, it was more likely that the entire workforce was trained. Of course, the worst offenders (that I know of) are in the restaurant industry, and I think it is unlikely many of them are being trained at all.
Posted by: Nicole Porter | Mar 22, 2006 12:04:04 PM
Excellent points, Nicole. I also did a lot of sexual harassment training in my day and it always amazed me when employers only wanted to train their supervisors.
My preference was to train the whole workforce on certain areas and then maybe hold the supervisors for an additional hour or so to do some additional training based on their specific responsibilities under the policy.
Posted by: Paul | Mar 22, 2006 12:28:09 PM
I suspect the major difference in the polls is who was surveyed and why they were surveyed. I use the sites of both organizations. Jackson Lewis surveyed their own clients that the law firm has, I feel sure, recommended harassment training. The TrainRight survey was answered by people going to the Personnel Policy Services website, a very diverse group of people-and the survey was responded to by less than 1000 of their 22,000+ subscribers.
Posted by: Jim Frierson | Mar 23, 2006 3:16:00 PM
You may also want to consider that apparently the second survey was not only related to sexual harassment training. The cited study included discrimination training as well - "employers still do not provide preventive training for sexual harassment or discrimination." The way this is worded, part of the percentage difference could include those respondents who said that their employer did not have discrimination training.
Posted by: Sally McArthur | Mar 24, 2006 9:16:29 AM
