Following last month’s re-opening of Parliament’s Strangers Bar after allegations of drink-spiking, Mike Clancy considers how employers should protect their employees from sexual harassment.

The introduction of CCTV to bars on the parliamentary estate following reports of drink-spiking is a welcome move. Establishing basic security measures is a step towards equalising the safety and dignity of Parliamentary staff with the standards we expect in any other workplace, or in public life.

A step in the right direction, but not a lot to boast about. Our elected leaders should be setting standards rather than following in their wake.

This incident should act as a catalyst towards the proactive, protective culture that Westminster owes its workforce.

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Health and safety concerns

Health and safety is the bread and butter of trade union work, and rightly the issue of sexual harassment has been in the spotlight recently, not just at Westminster but across the economy.

Prospect redoubled its efforts to tackle sexual harassment in our members’ workplaces in the early days of the MeToo movement.

We have invested in training for our staff, additional legal resources, renewed policy and guidance, and a specialist advice line for members who have experienced sexual harassment at work.

Moreover, we have established ourselves as a trusted partner to employers that are serious about protecting their own staff. We have been sought out to advise executive teams on this issue, not only in organisations that recognise Prospect, but even in some that are completely new to working with trade unions.

As employers get used to the new legal duty to take “reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their employees, I invite employers to look us up and find out how a modern union can be your best ally in this mission.

Make no mistake, though: we are built to challenge, and there is no issue on which I am more ready to challenge than workplace sexual harassment. Don’t expect shortcuts, easy checklists or empty reassurances from us.

A culture of change

Sexual harassment is a cultural dysfunction, so be prepared for the deep work of culture change. And to my fellow organisational leaders: be prepared to own it yourselves.

We advocate a principles-driven approach:

• We recognise sexual harassment as a spectrum of behaviours, from the ubiquitous ‘banter’ and sexist jokes to the more physical and more overtly sexual types. We must put a stop to sexual harassment in all its forms.

• Culture change is a collective endeavour. A major advantage Prospect brings to the work is our ability to offer trusted, independent mechanisms to engage the grassroots: to identify risk factors; restructure the underlying assumptions that drive culture; and define a respectful workplace culture to be collectively owned as a ‘social contract’.

• Employers must make it their priority to support the targets. The primary lesson from the MeToo movement is that most sexual harassment goes unreported because people are not confident in their workplaces to make the situation better rather than worse. We must learn to welcome disclosures of sexual harassment as an opportunity to put things right.

• Every member of the workforce should feel assured of robust, transparent justice, not shying away from appropriate sanctions for confirmed perpetrators. Tools such as CCTV, for use in an investigation, are not in themselves sufficient to prevent misconduct, but can play an important supporting role.

The role of leaders Sexual harassment

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Finally, we call for strong, accountable leadership, starting at the very top.

As a leader myself, I know that my priorities inform the priorities of everyone who reports to me. There is an MIT Sloan framework that describes organisations through 3 Lenses – the strategic, the cultural and the political – each one resisting change in either of the others. We all know that culture eats strategy for breakfast, but we should also know that a programme of culture change calls for the structures of power and authority to be mission-aligned.

My personal challenge to the leaders of the organisations Prospect works with is to be prepared to own the mission to eradicate sexual harassment. Culture leadership is a responsibility that must be shared, but it cannot be delegated.

That’s a challenge that goes double for our elected leaders in Westminster. They must own the responsibility to protect their own workforce from sexual harassment, and as the general secretary of a union representing parliamentary staff, I can promise you that I am watching their every move.

They must additionally take up their responsibility to lead and embody standards for every other workplace in the country. We need a political establishment that can exert moral authority and credibility to drive positive change throughout public life.

 

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