Saturday, Mar 12, 2022 • 12min
How to support witnesses of harassment and build healthier workplaces
Play Episode
Memory scientist Julia Shaw examines the ways companies can protect and advocate for employees who face workplace discrimination and harassment. This talk was filmed at TEDxLondonWomen. All TEDx events are organized independently by volunteers in the spirit of TED's mission of ideas worth spreading. To learn more about TEDxSHORTS, the TEDx program, or give feedback on this episode, please visit http://go.ted.com/tedxshorts http://go.ted.com/tedxshorts
Follow TEDx on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TEDx
https://twitter.com/TEDx
Follow TEDx on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tedx_official https://www.instagram.com/tedx_official
Read more
Talking about
Speakers
(2)
Julia Shaw
Atossa Leoni
Transcript
Verified
Break
Atossa Leoni
01:50
A quick new idea daily from the world's greatest
TEDx
thoughts. I'm your host Atossa Leoni
and this is TEDx
shorts. What makes you speak up at work when you see something you know is wrong. Now, what makes you not speak up? Memory scientist Julia Shaw
explains the psychology of those who witness workplace discrimination and harassment and shares actionable steps companies can take to support and amplify their voices.Share
Julia Shaw
02:31
I'm Dr
Julia Shaw
, a research associate at University College London
and the co-founder of Spot. Spot is a tool that helps organizations tackle harassment and discrimination with better reporting options and better training. And in 2019 along with Dr. Camilla Elphick and Dr. Rashid Minhas and a number of international NGOs
and charities, we conducted one of the largest studies ever on witnesses of harassment and discrimination at work.Share
02:60
Why witnesses? The first time that I was victimized and became the target of inappropriate workplace behavior. I hadn't even left university. A couple of academics who were far more senior than me repeatedly and relentlessly targeted me. And every time something happens, I wish that someone would speak up, that they would tell me that I'm not overreacting, that I'm saying that there's something that we could do. But instead I found myself with reporting paralysis. I didn't speak up, and neither did most other people.
Share
03:35
Why didn't I just speak up? Well, I was worried about the consequences for my career because I loved my work. I was also worried about things that many people see as barriers like not being believed or taken seriously like my situation, resulting in no change.
Share
03:51
Luckily, over the past couple of years we've seen that reporting paralysis is affecting fewer people and some people are able to now have voices who before were voiceless. When we first started spot, we allowed people to submit statements about experiencing harassment or discrimination to talk to spot. com. And as researchers, we looked at these stories, and we were shocked when we found that 93% of victims reported that there was at least one witness. These things that aren't happening behind closed doors. Further research has since come out which has further repeated this idea that most harassment and discrimination is witnessed.
Share
04:32
And so how do we mobilize these witnesses. First, let's talk about the psychology of being a witness. In 2018, 2 women were at a
Starbucks
when they watched a barista deny access to a washroom to two African American men. Instead, the barista called the police. The two active bystanders took a video of the men in handcuffs and posted it online. This act of by standing had an almost immediate positive effect. Starbucks
closed a number of its doors and implemented bias training.Share
05:06
Most of us think that we would be these active bystanders? That we would be these kinds of heroes? In fact, in research on this, When researchers give people hypothetical scenarios and ask if they would intervene, most of us, "of course, yes, of course, of course I would stand up". But even when those same researchers present an actual physical situation where someone needs to actually intervene, most people do nothing, and they fall prey to the well known bystander effect.
Share
05:35
Why? And what are the barriers that people are facing? In our research, three quarters of people who we had interviewed and who we had participated in our study, which was over 1000 participants. Three quarters of them said that they never reported the incident to
HR
, they never reported the incident to someone who could do something about it. And the barriers that they cited, the number one barrier, was actually the exact same as the main barrier that victims report, which is the fear of consequences or retaliation. Even witnesses are worried about what might happen to them and their careers. Other reasons that people reported was not wanting to interfere or not wanting to be a snitch, not knowing they could report, or not knowing how. All of these things can be targeted with better education and better systems and workplaces.Share
06:29
But the story of the witness isn't complete without also talking about the consequences for the witnesses themselves. If you were to see someone who had just witnessed a crime being committed on the street, you would almost certainly go up to that witness and say, "Are you okay? Do you need some support?" You might even offer them counseling or therapy to process what they just saw. But witnesses at work are largely invisible, and of course so is support for them. And some of this invisibility might even be internalized. When we asked our participants about reporting and when we asked them about the negative consequences for them, we found that most people said when asked directly did witnessing this experience have a negative repercussion, most people said, "No, I'm fine".
Share
07:15
But when we looked at the qualitative entries, when we looked at what people actually wrote about this experience, we found that these experience have profoundly negative impacts. They increased stress and anxiety and depression. They increased the prevalence of desire to leave the organization, loss of faith. Why is there this discrepancy? It seems that we're doing a comparative evaluation compared to the victim. Not nothing really happened to me, but that's not really the right question. And support shouldn't be invisible just because you're less affected because we're all affected, and we should all be supporting each other.
Share
07:56
We also found evidence of a social contagion. While 23% of participants told
HR
. More, 56% told colleagues, usually someone on their team and 67% told someone outside of work. What this shows is that the negative consequences of the situation where someone is harassed or discriminated against, go far beyond the room. People take that story with them and that discontent grows as they tell more and more people. And this has the real effect that is almost certainly threatening your ability as an organization to retain and attract divers and excellent candidates.Share
08:37
So what do we do to stop the social contagion? What do we do to reduce these barriers? And how do we provide support for witnesses and victims? How can we be better allies? And it's easier than you might think. In my research, I've come across five particular things that I think every organization can and should do to help tackle this issue and to build healthier workplaces.
Share
09:00
First, showcase your commitment. If your leadership isn't repeatedly saying how important diversity and inclusion is to them and living by example, no one is going to believe you and an
HR
driven campaign is insufficient. Your organization is a direct mirror of its leadership team, and they need to be setting the tone.Share
09:23
Second, train your managers. The main person who is likely to harass someone in your organization is a manager. Now, why? Perhaps because power corrupts, or perhaps because we promote people into managerial roles because they're excellent at their jobs. And we assume that they will pick up the people skills, pick up the management skills along the way, but then they don't. And this provides a fertile ground for harassment and discrimination with unrealistic expectations with poor time management with poor conflict management skills. Train your managers.
Share
10:01
Third, we know from research on victims that without the ability to report anonymously, the fear of consequences is so overwhelming that most people will never report incidents. We found the same was true for witnesses. When we asked them directly in our study whether organizations could do something to improve the fact that they might report, they said number one, that they could do better was allowing for witness anonymity.
Share
10:26
Second, was providing choices about who to report to. Perhaps shockingly, although managers are the most likely person to be perpetrating harassment discrimination in many organizations, they're also supposed to be your first point of contact when things go wrong. Now, that's a major sticking point. So being able to choose who you go to is crucial. Third, encouraging witness reporting back to setting a tone in your organization saying you can and should report things, and you can help stand up for each other.
Share
10:54
Fourth, even when you have all of this in place, most people will not speak to
HR
we know this because that spot we thought anonymity would solve everything, it did not. Anonymity is one piece of the puzzle. Conducting surveys means that you go out to your employees, you don't wait for them to come to you, and you ask everybody about how they feel about the health of inclusion and diversity efforts within the organization. And be specific asked people about specific incidents or specific things they've witnessed because just like in our survey, if you ask people directly, if they have experienced harassment or discrimination, the default answer is no. But if you ask about specific experiences or specific behaviors, most people go, "Oh yeah, I saw that the other week". So making sure you ask the right questions is crucial.Share
11:42
Finally, and most importantly, research shows that one of the best ways to mitigate the bystander effect is to build a shared social identity. It's not about policing each other, It's not about calling each other out, it's about being a cohesive unit. We are in this together, if you attack one of us, you're attacking all of us. Because wouldn't you want that? Wouldn't you want someone to stand by you? If something negative happens, we're all hopefully collectively building an organization that is stronger and healthier and more diverse and inclusive.
Share
12:19
Without my allies, I wouldn't be here, when I was first targeted with inappropriate behavior at work, I fell into a depression and I almost left academia altogether. Without a few people who stood by me, I wouldn't be on this stage right now. And I wish I had a happy ending for you, but unfortunately, these individuals are still at it. You see in organizational structures where colleagues work in dispersed ways, where it's difficult to know who even to report to, never mind what the consequences might be.
Share
12:52
These kinds of behaviors are most likely to flourish for longer, but that doesn't stop me from trying to stop it. And I can tell you one thing that over the past couple of years in my research, I have found that there have been so many positive changes. Changes in legislation, changes in attitudes and organizations are finally taking these issues seriously. I swear the time of the harassers and the bullies and the discriminator is coming to an end.
Share
Atossa Leoni
13:19
The
TEDx
docu that you just listen to was recorded at a TEDx
event in London
, England
. All TEDx
events are independently organized by volunteers who believe in transmission of ideas worth spreading. Special thanks to the organizing team at TEDx
London
women. want to listen to more TEDx
talks, explore the entire archive on the TEDx
YouTube
channel. I'm Atossa Leoni
, thanks for listening, and see you tomorrow.Share
14:05
PRX
Share
Add podcast
🇮🇹 Made with love & passion in Italy. 🌎 Enjoyed everywhere
Build n. 1.38.1
Atossa Leoni
Julia Shaw