The SHR Department

Harrods say that 250 women have made allegations of sexual harassment against Mohamed Al Fayed. It would be easy to dismiss this as an exceptional, sensational story. Except for the data that indicates that 52% of women experience sexual harassment at work. He was no exception, there are Mohamed Al Fayeds everywhere.

But I’m not going to rant about him - what’s the point, he’s dead and thankfully won’t be causing any more harm. What I am going to rant about is the fact that companies and organizations allow this to happen - they allow over half of their women to be sexually harassed in their workplace and do nothing, or very little, to deal with it and with the men doing it.

From October 26th, the Worker Protection Act will come into force and employers who fail to take steps to prevent sexual harassment can be reported to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and they can then take action against the employer.

In this context this is for sure a good thing, but it just shouldn’t be needed, should it? Why are BBC documentaries and Commissions doing work that companies should be doing as a basic? Many people naively believe that it is the HR Department’s role to protect employees from these things, but most women who have experienced sexual harassment and turned to HR have learnt that this is the opposite of reality - and have ended up in the best case not believed, in the worst case unemployed while the perpetrator is protected and unaffacted. Because when it comes to it, HR usually protects the more senior & influential, more expensive & difficult to exit man over the junior, easier & cheaper to dismiss woman. The harsh reality is that the HR Department represents the company, not the people in it - and a sexual harassment case and its costly repercussions is generally not embraced by a company.

So I think companies & organizations need a new department: The SHR Department - The Sexual Harassment Resources Department. A department you can finally, safely, go to to report harassment. A department that will assume you are telling the truth and will make sure that, if you are, your harasser will be fired - no matter how senior, powerful, or expensive he is. And a department that will protect you in the process.

For an employer, surely this is better - and ultimately less costly - than the BBC or EHRC doing the job for you. But most importantly of all, if you pause ans think about it for a few moments - surely you don’t want to work in a place where over half your women have been or are being sexually harassed.