By Jana Morrin
It’s been several years since the #MeToo movement rose to nationwide prominence, finally giving sexual harassment and workplace mistreatment the attention they have long deserved.
The good news is that many organizations are reacting to this moment and actively seeking to build a more positive, inclusive workplace culture. They’re embracing new ideas, tools and strategies in the effort to stop employee mistreatment once and for all.
This is music to my ears, because I was once a victim of workplace harassment myself. It got to the point where I feared going to the office because I had no idea what my boss might say or do next. Thoughts would run endlessly through my head. Was I doing something to provoke his bad behavior? Were his comments and actions really as egregious as they seemed to me? Was I somehow at fault?
I had a hard time figuring out what I was experiencing and whether it was definitely harassment. And that’s the thing about workplace mistreatment. There are not clear lines and there are so many gray areas. But that does not mean this kind of behavior should ever be ignored—or, worse, condoned.
The situation got so bad that I eventually quit my job. In retrospect, I wish the company had a process in place that enabled me to come forward sooner. The company did have a hotline plus a “zero tolerance” policy, however these efforts weren’t talked about much and they somehow felt insincere.
I wish it had a formal policy of taking complaints seriously and encouraging employees who are in uncomfortable situations or who don’t feel safe to make their experiences known. I wish I could say with 100% certainty that the organization cared about what I was going through.
Instead, I reached a breaking point where I didn’t want to be there at all. The whole experience had become emotionally and physically exhausting. If I had just had a place to turn for validation at that time, it would have made all the difference.
But where would that place be? What sort of tool can an organization put in place that both protects workers and ensures a fair investigative process? That facilitates both anonymity and transparency when it comes time to make a complaint about workplace mistreatment?
Let’s start with the anonymity piece. For employees, it is very difficult to go through mistreatment. It is also very difficult to come forward and file a complaint. For people who experience trauma at work, maintaining anonymity can help them remedy the problem and deal with the emotional burden.
There are many reasons why employees in this situation want anonymity. These include fear of retaliation, personal embarrassment and concerns they won’t be believed. They also fear that coming out publicly will just make the mistreatment worse.
From the organization’s perspective, however, anonymous complaints are tricky because they make it hard to take concrete action. That’s why it’s important for companies to make it possible for employees to document what they are experiencing even if they are not ready to come forward.
But organizations need better tools to make this happen. Legacy reporting tools like anonymous hotlines and comment boxes just aren’t up to the task. These tools are very rarely used because employees don’t believe in their efficacy and don’t trust the process. Additionally, there is no way to gather background information or documentation through these channels.
The reality is that people need time to process what is happening and organize their thoughts. And they need a place to keep track of their experiences as they happen. That’s why organizations should seriously consider using documentation tools and platforms that allow for total anonymity but at the same time capture all relevant information.
Such a platform allows users not only to log their experiences but also helps them take a deep breath and gather their thoughts. How? Well, for instance, the platform can ask an employee what kind of mistreatment they are experiencing: harassment, bias, inappropriate comments? It can also ask an employee to outline where exactly the incident(s) happened: at the workplace or a workplace event or elsewhere? The tool can even prompt employees to rank the severity of what they experienced: low, medium or high severity?
A platform like this would allow employees to maintain their anonymity in the early stages of chronicling their experiences, while ensuring that no information is lost over time and no allegations are open to charges of retroaction. “Why are you just bringing up now something that happened a year ago?”
It would also provide HR with a window into an organization’s pattern of such complaints and shed light on systemic issues if they exist. Employees would not have to be associated with their data until they choose to submit an official complaint.
This kind of approach would accomplish two necessary but often opposing goals. It would support anonymity and at the same time promote transparency. It would enable victims of workplace mistreatment to come forward by simplifying the process of calling out mistreatment and allow them to make their case without sitting down in a room and explaining themselves, which is often an uncomfortable situation, to say the least.
Ultimately, the aim is to encourage employees to open up about their experiences because, when they do, it is easier for the organization to provide them with the support they need. In the end, if mistreated workers believe they are being taken seriously and that their actions will result in positive outcomes, they will be more likely to speak up. And this will create a positive feedback loop.
Nobody wants the next #MeToo headlines to be written about their company. The burden is now on every organization to promote transparency and cultivate a culture of trust. It’s time for organizations to make it easy and stress-free for employees to report mistreatment, because that’s the first step toward ending mistreatment entirely.
CEO & Co-founder, www.speakfully.com