Impact of Sexual Harassment on Company Work Culture

Impact of Sexual Harassment on Company Work Culture

Any kind of discrimination on the basis of sex is considered sexual harassment, no matter how minor or severe the intensity might be. In work places such attitude might break down the moral of the victim which directly affects office productivity. The offended, humiliated or intimidated act might escalate to violent behavior if not properly checked it time.

A few of such upsetting behavior includes requests for sexual favors, unwelcome sexual advances, unwelcomed sexual advances, verbal or physical harassment and so on.

Different nature of sexual harassment

Sexual harassment against people of the same or opposite sex is seen in a number of ways. Below are the top most common ones:

  • Staring or leering with unnecessary insults and taunts sexually
  • Unwelcoming touches or premeditated brushing up
  • Intuitive comments or jokes of sexual manner
  • Intrusion in personal life and passing judgment on the same
  • Inappropriate sexually explicit emails or text messages
  • Inappropriate displaying of matter with sexual motive on social networking sites
  • Unwanted date requests for sex
  • Physical attack, sexual assault, stalking, impolite exposure or obscene interactions

Impact of sexual harassment at workplaces

Sexual harassment directly affects the work environment. People need peace of mind for productivity and when that element disappears, the graph falls down in no time. It affects the company’s credibility too as none would like to be a part of such work environment.

Employees waste their time gossiping about the issue. It definitely has no positive impact on the employee’s moral and lead to loss in productivity.

Prevention of sexual harassment at workplaces

You can prevent such moral damaging acts before it damages the company’s work culture and image. Come up with sexual harassment policies in your company. It should include topics like definition of sexual harassment, step wise procedure for filing sexual harassment complaints, consequences of sexual harassment and punishments, etc.

Adopt orientation program once every year for employees to explain their rights and how to proceed with complaints. Also conduct training sessions for supervisors and managers separately and explain them how to deal with complaints.

Be responsive to complaints instantly. Deal with it carefully by taking proactive steps without being biased.