More than half of employees said they would always report harassment at work, but a third said they only would if they were able to do so anonymously, according to online compliance training company Traliant’s latest annual workplace harassment report, released Tuesday.
Of the more than 2,100 full-time U.S. employees surveyed, 22% said they didn’t report harassment and 38% of those who did said they were unsatisfied with how their employer handled it, Traliant found.
The survey results are “a critical call to action” for employers, Traliant said.
“When reports of misconduct go unaddressed, organizations risk reinforcing cycles of fear and perpetuating cultures that tolerate harassment,” Elissa Rossi, vice president of compliance services at Traliant, said in a statement.
Even though more than three-quarters of workers said their organization places a “very high” or “extremely high” priority on preventing workplace harassment, nearly a third said they don’t feel completely protected, the report found.
Although numbers improved from the previous year, 38% of workers surveyed said they have witnessed workplace harassment in the past five years and 21% said they experienced it personally, Traliant said. Those figures are higher among Generation Z employees; nearly half said they witnessed harassment, and a third said they faced it firsthand.
“Modest declines should not overshadow the fact that a significant percentage of employees continue to work in workplaces where harmful behavior goes unchecked,” Traliant said.
Instances of workplace harassment are even higher for employees in customer-facing industries such as hotels, restaurants and bars, the report found. Workers said they witnessed or experienced identity-based harassment — which is harassment based on race, ethnicity or gender — slightly more often than sexual harassment.
“The survey findings make it clear that harassment remains a persistent challenge that employers need to address so employees can feel protected with the right knowledge and channels for responding to and reporting harassment,” Rossi said.
Traliant recommends employers offer multiple reporting channels to “meet employees where they are and [empower] them to speak up in a way that makes them feel safest.” The most preferred avenues are human resources, managers and anonymous reporting.
A need for multiple reporting paths is apparent, too, when considering the sources of workplace harassment. Although 37% of harassment is committed by nonsupervisory co-workers, 35% can be traced to indirect and direct supervisors, the report found.
“This dynamic also highlights the importance of transparent, anonymous reporting pathways and effective leadership accountability,” Traliant said.
The report also highlighted the need for training. Of the workers who witnessed harassment, 18% said no one intervened, “underscoring the continued relevance of bystander intervention training,” Traliant said.
Yet 14% of employees said they didn’t receive any kind of workplace harassment training in the past year, the report found.
“This leaves a significant group vulnerable and opens the door to perpetuating cultures that tolerate harassment,” Traliant said.
Workers report seeing the benefits of compliance training, a recent TalentLMS survey found; 60% of those surveyed said training led to better behavior at work. However, a quarter of workers said they witnessed retaliation for speaking up about misconduct at work, and a fifth said they experienced it personally.
Workplace training, however, could be tricky for employers to navigate, given the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s recent rescission of its harassment guidance.