Sexual violence is a well-documented social and public health concern. Although billions are spent on addressing sexual violence, its manifestations, implications, and responses, within the workplace context there is a dearth of research focusing on how such violence may affect employee performance or organizational health. This is a significant oversight, as current research on scale within workplaces, may have significant impacts on individual employees, and is strongly influenced by organizational or workplace culture.
Fostering a climate of safety and respect is associated with reduced rates of sexual violence in the workplace and with facilitating the reports of sexual violence in the workplace. Despite significant impacts of work on sexual violence, the significant impacts on the individual employee’s productivity may have been compromised by the fact that most of the employees we tested reported unwanted sexual touching, mostly in the context of a workplace.
Although a common yet underappreciated precursor to more severe forms of sexual violence, unwanted sexual touching is itself linked to significant productivity decrements. Research conducted in the 1990s revealed that women (and much more rarely men) reported substantial productivity decrements, including reduced concentration and an inability to perform work duties or making errors as a result of unwanted sexual touching in the prior 30 days. A replication study found it remains a significant work concern. This study could therefore have important implications for organizational welfare and provides a substantial justification for this research.
The simplest division of sexual violence is based on the four main identified areas: verbal (the most common form is sexual comments or jokes; it also includes obscene or insulting letters, reports, invitations, or requests for dates or sexual acts), non-verbal (undesirable, intrusive staring; offensive hand or body signs or gestures), physical (unwanted touching, hugging, kissing, or pinching, including more serious forms of assault), and non-contact (e.g., through electronic media, such as social networks, but also less direct elements, e.g., hostile looks).
The majority of sexual assaults are verbal, related to making insulting commercial sexual comments or telling sexual or sexist jokes, often due to taking money or benefits. For victims, the psychological aspect of these behaviors (shyness, concentrating on negative self-defense fears, feelings of gloom) is very important. The spectrum of sexual violence ranges from acts that may go unnoticed but are experienced as unpleasant and harmful to their recipients, to severe acts, such as intended threats or physical force, protection deprivation, regardless of the will of the victim, or against the will of sexual contact, or attempts to establish such contact.
Not every employee realizes that an act of harassment has been directed at them, which may also be due to attitudes of interpersonal silence and concealment. There are many forms of sexual harassment – from jokes about unequal treatment (e.g., gifts with a sexual message), personal assessment (body, appearance, clothing, disadvantage in case of non-compliance with proposals, different treatment of an employee who is a lover or relative of a person in power) to activities directly interfering with intimacy (unwanted courtship, acquaintances, unwanted touching, kisses, hugs, pinching, squeezing against objects). These behaviors often have behind them the motive of gaining submission, humiliating another person, and often relate to gender inequality and the unequal power of the actors.
Prevalence of Sexual Violence in the Workplace
Concrete data on the prevalence of sexual violence at work is difficult to come by for many reasons. The majority of workers who experience sexual violence do not report the attack to their employers, rendering studies on reported cases incomplete at best. One statistic regularly cited in this vein is that in 2014, among the respondents who had been sexually assaulted in the previous 12 months, 66% were women and 34% were men. However, only 8% of the total sexual assaults reported in the survey came to the attention of the police. Data on the prevalence of workplace sexual violence is a useful starting point, as it reasserts the urgency of the situation as well as demonstrates the scope of the issue. A report found that a remarkable 40% of female journalists and media workers surveyed had personally experienced gender-based violence in the course of their work: 86.3% of the threats from the men surveyed were online, while 19% of the men detailed threats of physical or sexual violence.
Even as early as the 1970s, reports showed the prevalence of sexual harassment; some horror moved out of the home and into the workplace. Recognizing that the home had long been a neglectful or hostile environment, many women fled to work, either as a mere change of scenery, to make ends meet, or to escape worse. By 1971, a private firm found that 1 in 14 women had experienced “offensive” behavior at work, resulting in absenteeism for some employees and high tensions. Sexual harassment employees may be deliberately isolated by the harasser, their colleagues, and managers, perpetuating a sense of helplessness, hopelessness, and depression. Furthermore, employees may not report being harassed due to feelings of guilt and shame or fear of further retribution. Alternatively, employees may feel coerced into sexual submission.
Impact of Sexual Violence on Employee Performance
Sexual violence can affect an employee’s ability to perform. Experiences of sexual violence may lead to a range of complex physical and emotional difficulties, which may be difficult for an affected employee to manage. Short-term physical consequences of sexual violence may include life-threatening injuries, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections. Some of the difficulties that result from the experience of sexual violence do not easily go away and can have ongoing and various psychological and physical health consequences. Long-term psychological consequences for individuals who have experienced sexual violence include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and suicidal tendencies.
These psychological effects may have work-related consequences for affected individuals, such as increased sick leave and absences from work. Conversely, employees may turn up for work unwell and be less productive. They may also appear uncharacteristically tired and unmotivated. Unresolved incidents have been associated with business costs, such as increased employee turnover, increasing training and recruitment costs, and decreasing workforce morale. Taken together, these personal and workplace consequences impact employee performance, which can be to the detriment of the business. Thus, understanding the impact of sexual violence provides evidence of the need to support victims of sexual violence as a conscientious employer.
The physical and emotional reactions to trauma, though varied, are often linked. Chronic pain, fatigue, or gastrointestinal distress, as examples, are typical physical manifestations of an overactive, hypervigilant stress response. Specifically for individuals who have experienced traumatic events themselves, pain and somatic symptoms develop as a direct result of an assault, directly serve to keep the survivor safe from future victimization, or interfere with someone’s ability to cope with reminders of the assault.
These physical effects can translate to the workplace in a variety of ways, from the misuse of sick time to regularly arriving late to work already in physical or cognitive distress. The cognitive, emotional, and behavioral effects that produce anxiety, depression, suspicion, disbelief, isolation, alienation, and fear also have negative implications for an individual’s workplace experience. Generalized anxiety, which is prevalent in survivors of sexual violence, has the potential to manifest as sudden-onset panic or feelings of panic when situations remind the individual of the assault.
The unrelenting caution, distrust, and hypervigilance necessary for workplace safety are associated with long hours and perpetual suspicion that can lead to workplace isolation and permission to tune inwards and disconnect from the organizational culture. Ultimately, the effects of a primary survivor’s assault may impair the employee’s ability to effectively carry out the duties of their job and can influence organizational culture by contributing to what some call the “climate of fear” within the organization. Organizations that understand the physical, emotional, and cognitive effects of trauma on an individual are better prepared to empathize with their employees, assist those who have experienced violence in the workplace, and prepare for future incidents.
Shifting into a space of productivity, a range of health implications stemming from sexual violence can seep into the workplace. In release-based technology, released trauma memories and ongoing experiences of mistreatment or abuse can decrease productivity, inhibit team development, and discourage open dialogue. In the same vein, developed and untreated mental health conditions may directly and indirectly reduce performance.
A person might struggle to sustain an adequate level of productivity after a sexual violence experience, be absent from work because of mental health or safety-related issues, or be physically present but disengaged or preoccupied with potential threats in the workplace. Moreover, the presence of a perpetrator in the workplace may not only be part of their abusive pursuit but may also serve a role towards the employee. For instance, after a violent incident, it may be common for teams not to work together as a group for a period of time. Workers may also have different feelings about their colleagues in cases of past or current mistreatment, and the tension may go unspoken but still affect the productivity of the group.
Individual or situational abuse or harassment, therefore, can cascade into an organizational culture of mistrust. Despite the fact that cases of sexual violence very often go unreported, an institution perceived as not responding to reports of violence with supportive measures becomes an even less supportive place compared to what it was before. No meaningful response is seen as indicative of a culture conducive to impunity, i.e., to reprisals against victims and witnesses.
Reluctance or helplessness to act by an employer underlines a message from the institution that it does not have the best interest of the employees at heart. The results of ongoing studies find that inaction is felt by co-workers to offer an implicit endorsement by management. This further fuels a lack of trust and disengagement as it suggests a perception of value on the part of the management of other employees over safety and well-being.
Moreover, inadequate responses or inaction on the part of the employers may place the victims of the violence into a position where they may be defensive of attacks on the institution as a way of maintaining workplace belonging. Until these processes are treated explicitly, they tend to be internalized and thus may help weaken the level of loyalty, trust, and creativity on the part of the victim. The untreated trauma thereby trickles down through all levels of the organization and undermines the fundamental mission of the workplace.
Concentration is at the very heart of the activity of professional people. The intellectual and emotional state can affect the decision-making abilities of workers. For the victims of the violence, the presence of the perpetrator in the institution can decrease the level of concentration, a basic element for ensuring high standard outputs. It is suggested that these issues should be seen as preventable risks. Single mechanisms will not necessarily provide immediate solutions, but if these factors are perceived by most people as unacceptable, such future behavior has the promise to foster a less permissive and facilitating attitude. Furthermore, drawing out relevant and explicit support mechanisms can be seen as a form of social responsibility by investors, employees, and other interested parties. Secondly, identifying workplace policies or cultures that contribute to unsafe environments can move towards increasing overall productivity while also creating a healthy environment that is mutually beneficial.
Legal and Organizational Responses
Although sexual harassment in the workplace reached public attention in a flurry of media activity, it is not a new phenomenon. Legislation created in the last half century to combat sexual harassment reflects an understanding: sexual violence must be addressed in workplaces if employees are to accomplish their tasks in supportive, violence-free environments. Whether through class-action lawsuits or other mechanisms, individuals who have experienced sexual violence in the workplace (usually women, though small numbers of men, transgender individuals, and genderqueer individuals also experience sexual harassment and assault in the workplace) may seek to hold their employers accountable for the actions of their coworkers, clients, or other affiliates. However, many sexual violence allegations are never brought to light in part because of potential consequences for the victim, including social stigma, professional retaliation, or re-victimization.
In response to this concern, many organizations have policies in place to give guidance, and earlier in this paper, we recommended that such policies should exist. Moreover, policies should be easily accessible and understandable, addressing questions like: What do I do if this happens to me or I see it happening to someone else? How can I report it? What will happen if I do report it, including how other employees might find out? What will happen if I do not report it?
Research has shown further that organizations should have training in place that includes not only what not to do but also what to do in specific situations. As a result of the movement and a proliferation of related initiatives, new processes are also undertaken with larger groups and with organizations. Many are aimed at the culture of the organization, emphasizing the importance of a ‘zero tolerance policy,’ as well as public awareness campaigns. Often, these measures could lead to a culture of tighter internal regulation.
