DOHR plays a key role in project to combat Sexual Harassment in the workplace

DOHR are now able to announce a partnership with Jewish Women’s Aid to deliver a comprehensive Sexual Harassment Awareness and Management in the Workplace programme.

As an HR practice, we have been advising businesses on the need to actively manage and take a zero-tolerance approach to harassment of all kinds. This project has given us the opportunity to work on sexual harassment specifically and we are proud to be delivering training to each of the charitable organisations within the pilot study.

The project started with training for 5 volunteers, each of whom will ‘adopt’ an organisation in the pilot group. DOHR ‘s HR Operations Manager Fiona Mendel, delivered training to these volunteers last month to ensure that they fully understood the policy and procedures we have created and the current legal framework. This was then placed into the context of the project by JWA.

Having a robust policy, the right procedures and a top down culture of respect, ensures all charities (and business owners) make their workplace a better place to be! It takes time and real commitment to create, embed and sustain the right culture, but with sponsorship and support at the most senior levels, the right policies and procedures and the right training, all organisations can achieve a workplace which is free from sexual harassment regardless of your gender or sexuality.

Not only is the project looking at the most common form of harassment, ie. male on female, but we are also opening the door on the far more sensitive and uncomfortable forms of sexual harassment, female on male, female on female and male on male.

Getting clear numbers on these issues is very difficult as people are generally too scared or embarrassed to report their experiences, but from anecdotal evidence there is a significant rise in all forms of harassment, including sexual harassment and businesses are still not handling these issues legally, morally and consistently.

The rise of the #metoo campaign has shone a light on the issues of harassment, but has not provided the practical business focussed responses which organisations need and that’s what we will be working with the pilot organisations to do in the next six – twelve months.

In addition, we are assisting in surveying the current culture within the organisations and will be monitoring this over a three year period to assess the short, medium and long term impact of the initiative. We are also hosting a harassment reporting phoneline, helping those in the pilot organisations affected by the issues of harassment to have meaningful, solution focussed conversations with their organisation.