SHRM CEO’s recent testimony at the CA legislature echoed what the EEOC said in 2016 – culture is the key to harassment prevention, and in fact culture trumps compliance. So your training allows you to check the compliance box, but why are you stopping there? Your best defense is creating a positive culture that leaves no room for harassment, because speaking up is comfortable. That is, your best defense is inviting employees to resolve the issue internally.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the stark similarities between incivility, conflict, harassment, bullying, and violence
• Develop a stronger understanding of the subtleties of sexual harassment
• Understand aggression and harassment as a social phenomenon, and why addressing it as a social problem is more powerful and sustainable than any one-time-training can offer
• Identify the risks of allowing negative behaviors to thrive
• Discover steps for creating a culture that does not tolerate harassment or bullying
• Identify the three steps of intervention to address behavior that goes against your core values
• Discover a simple tool for coaching those engaging in any behavior that goes against your core values, including harassment and bullying

Businesses who allow legal, negative behaviors to happen (e.g., bullying) are inviting employees to tell an attorney when illegal harassment happens. Employees can see behavior and culture are irrelevant to management, so why speak up? Stop inviting your employees to keep silent on harassment, and start helping them thrive. As SHRM’s Taylor says, “With a healthy workplace culture, when sexual harassment is observed or experienced, the community takes over and shuts it down collectively, with a message that this behavior will not be tolerated here, by anyone at any level.”