> I think the best thing to do as far as internal harassment goes is to basically have a no tolerance policy from the higher-ups. Not so much a "you'll get fired" thing but having everyone step up and say "Hey, that's not cool" when someone makes a sexist joke.
What you describe is not a zero tolerance policy. A zero tolerance policy requires punishment and "Hey, that's not cool" is not punishment.
If an employee is harassing another employee, he or she should be punished. Depending on the nature of the harassment and the employee's prior violations of company policy, the offending employee should absolutely understand that termination may result.
> At my job, we had a guy for awhile who would post funny pictures in chat. Every once in awhile, he'd post something NSFW (not necessarily nudity) and all the guys would just say "lol" and the women wouldn't respond at all. What should have happened (and I'm guilty of not doing this) is that all of the other men should have stepped in and said "Hey, you know, that's not cool."
This is precisely why your approach to the problem doesn't work: the first response of the people you're asking to say "Hey, that's not cool" is to "lol" when presented with a NSFW picture at work. This is simply a reflection of the fact that some percentage of employees are not mature and professional enough to have developed an awareness of the environment they're in.
It's silly to expect self-policing from folks who don't understand that a NSFW photo that might genuinely be amusing when shared outside of work can be incredibly awkward or offensive when shared at work.
Well, I think my point is that I wasn't one of the "lol" people, and I should have been one of the people to say "Hey, that's not cool," and this post is me promising myself that in the future, I will speak up.
I don't disagree with you, though. An official policy is great, but I think sometimes people just say things without thinking, and I don't necessarily think punishment (beyond public shaming of some kind) is really necessary in 100% of cases, which is kind of what I was getting at. If it was something blatant and clearly intentional, then absolutely get HR involved, but sometimes people just say things unintentionally.
I dunno. It's a very, very tricky, complicated topic, but in the end, I think we both agree that those with the power (socially or professionally) should absolutely step in and stop inappropriate behavior.
What you describe is not a zero tolerance policy. A zero tolerance policy requires punishment and "Hey, that's not cool" is not punishment.
If an employee is harassing another employee, he or she should be punished. Depending on the nature of the harassment and the employee's prior violations of company policy, the offending employee should absolutely understand that termination may result.
> At my job, we had a guy for awhile who would post funny pictures in chat. Every once in awhile, he'd post something NSFW (not necessarily nudity) and all the guys would just say "lol" and the women wouldn't respond at all. What should have happened (and I'm guilty of not doing this) is that all of the other men should have stepped in and said "Hey, you know, that's not cool."
This is precisely why your approach to the problem doesn't work: the first response of the people you're asking to say "Hey, that's not cool" is to "lol" when presented with a NSFW picture at work. This is simply a reflection of the fact that some percentage of employees are not mature and professional enough to have developed an awareness of the environment they're in.
It's silly to expect self-policing from folks who don't understand that a NSFW photo that might genuinely be amusing when shared outside of work can be incredibly awkward or offensive when shared at work.