The Report
In partnership with the Urban Institute, National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC), and RALIANCE, the Purple Campaign released a report highlighting how employers have adapted to the new world of work following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This report shares key statistics, emerging trends, policies, and practices that have been implemented by industry leaders to address harassment in the workplace.
Our Research
In light of the societal shift that occurred in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Purple Campaign led conversations with corporate leaders and policy experts, conducted trainings, and undertook additional research to understand how employers across industries were adapting to this new world of work, and what implications the changing workforce will have on policies and practices to address workplace harassment.
Included in this research were insights from The New World of Work: Anti-Harassment Policy Workshop, hosted by the Purple Campaign and Harvard Law School Executive Education in March 2021. This event brought together nearly 70 business leaders, legal scholars and activists, advocates, and researchers who shared emerging trends, policies, and practices that are being used to address harassment in the workplace. It was structured around the Purple Campaign’s four-part policy framework: Reduce, Respond, Rethink, and Rebuild. The New World of Work report is structured around this framework as well.
Key Takeaways
PART I: HOW TO REDUCE HARASSMENT
“Reduce” addresses policies and practices aimed at preventing instances of workplace harassment from occurring in the first place: those that pertain to transparency about the company’s policies and handling of incidents, and effectively training employees to create shared norms and expectations.
TRANSPARENCY:
Transparency helps prevent workplace harassment by creating shared norms, building trust, and demonstrating accountability.
Listen to Rob Chesnut, former General Counsel and Chief Ethics Officer at Airbnb, discuss measures employers can take to communicate the company’s values and expectations for acceptable behavior transparently:
TRAINING:
Research has shown that anti-harassment training improves understanding about the type of conduct that is unacceptable in the workplace. But the #MeToo movement has demonstrated that traditional training approaches have been largely ineffective at rooting out the problem.
Listen to Michael Marra, Co-Regional Managing Partner at Fisher Phillips LLP and Dallas Thompson, Training Director of the Purple Method, discuss the shortcomings of compliance-oriented trainings and share new creative solutions that can be applied in an increasingly dispersed workforce.
PART II: HOW TO RESPOND TO HARASSMENT
“Respond” addresses policies and practices aimed at ensuring employers fairly and adequately respond to instances of workplace harassment when they do occur: those that pertain to reporting misconduct internally, establishing fair investigation procedures, and ensuring appropriate corrective action is taken in response to substantiated allegations.
REPORTING:
To break down barriers to internal reporting, employers must establish clear reporting channels, including providing multiple ways for employees to report misconduct, and protect employees from retaliation so they can effectively respond when incidents of harassment occur in the workplace.
Listen to Lynn Haaland, Deputy General Counsel and Chief Compliance & Ethics Officer at Zoom Video Communications, and Melinda Kimbro, Chief People Officer and Senior Vice President of People and Culture at Viasat, Inc. address how employers can break down barriers to reporting and build trust with an increasingly remote workforce.
INVESTIGATIONS AND CORRECTIVE ACTION:
#MeToo revealed flaws in existing approaches to investigating workplace harassment. Employers must take steps to create fair, thorough, and impartial investigation procedures to respond effectively when employees report instances of workplace sexual harassment. Employers must take workplace harassment seriously and promote accountability for ALL employees. That starts with leaders taking appropriate corrective action measures in response to substantiated allegations of harassment.
Hear from Tarek Maassarani, Practitioner and Professor of Restorative Justice at Georgetown University Law Center, Grace Speights, Chair, Global Labor & Employment Practice at Morgan Lewis, and Brittany Anthony, Former Head of Global Women’s Safety Policy at Uber as they discuss how to conduct effective remote investigations and respond to incidents with corrective actions that are equitable, proportionate, and appropriate in the current work environment.