Workplace harassment and violence is a global problem, survey finds

Some things in life are more common than you like to think. Unfortunately, according to a new survey from the International Labour Organization and Gallup, workplace violence and harassment is one of them.

Zoom in. Almost 23% of the more than 74,000 global workers surveyed in the study said they have experienced some type of violence or harassment during their working life. That figure was slightly higher for youth workers, with 23.3% of those aged 15–24 having experienced violence or harassment at work in the last five years.

The survey distinguished between physical, psychological, and sexual forms of harassment, with psychological being the most common, and respondents from the Americas reporting it at the highest rate over their working life (29.3%).

Women, the study found, experience higher rates of sexual harassment (8.2%) than men (5%), with women in the Americas reporting it most frequently (17.7%).

Physical violence and harassment occurs at a similar rate as sexual harassment, impacting 8.5% of all workers. However, it’s the one area of the survey where men report to be impacted at a higher rate than women (9% versus 7.7%).

Employees stay silent. Workers who experience harassment or violence rarely share their experience. Just 54.4% of victims tell someone, and those who do are more likely to tell a friend or loved one (84.9%) than their supervisor (55.3%).

Respondents from the Americas reported being particularly hesitant to share their experiences. Approximately 62% said reporting their abuse was a “waste of time,” while 45% said the procedures were unclear.

HR’s responsibility. Matthew Stegmeier, director of operations at Project WHEN (Workplace Harassment Ends Now), told HR Brew earlier this year that HR leaders must lay “out [policies] for your staff: ‘If you experience misconduct, if you experience something inappropriate in these channels, here’s how we’re going to handle it.’ That does a lot of the work for signaling to employees that this is something that they can come forward about.”—KP

Do you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Email [email protected]. For completely confidential conversations, ask Kristen for her number on Signal.