Sexual harassment 2.0

A sexual innuendo, some social media and a smart phone walk into a bar one night… Sexual Harassment 2.0 comes out the next morning. A cautionary tale…

I was at a conference in the fall and was having dinner with a colleague and she noted the time (9:00 pm) and said… "Well, this is when all the drunken texts will start to roll in." She handed me her iPhone - a new text every five minutes would roll in… "Whatcha wearing?" "Need some company tonight?" and so on. Note: three of them were from married guys and two of them I know personally. I was floored. I had no idea such things even happened. I am still amazed at how gracefully she took the unwanted attention. At that point, I didn't think about whether or not this "action" was conducted on a company's phone. Think about that mess.

Flash forward…

In February I was hanging out with a friend in Dallas. She's extremely active online. We got in to a heated debate about Twitter and her associated profile (bio and profile photograph). She bet me that she could garner 200 followers while we were at dinner… if she made some slight modifications to her profile. By slight changes, I mean - a bio that was flirtatious (not raunchy) and a picture that was equally flirtatious. So, after the changes, we went on with the dinner. She garnered almost 500 new followers while we talked politics and religion. That many people "judged" her during that time period and decided to follow her. Really? Are we that shallow? Really?

Flash forward…

Last week, I was in Austin for the SXSW Interactive Conference. A friend called me out for "liking" a comment on one of her Facebook photos. I had no idea what the hell she was talking about… so, she pulled out her iPad and pulled up her photos and someone had made a comment about a photo of her at the beach and I had "liked" the said comment. In my defence, I thought I was 'liking' the album, which was cool but, alas, I looked like a total douche.

Flash forward…

Are you asking the obvious question right now? Who the hell does this guy hang out with? No, not that question. The question you should be asking is: Does this routinely happen to people I care about and/or my employees? If you say no, do me a favour and test that theory.

I believe this happens more than we care to admit. Unwanted or unsolicited sexual messages happen every single day. It happens in your place of work. It happens with your employees and on the company's dime. You can only play stupid for so long - here's the hard fact; one of your employees could be harassing another one of your employees.

Here are some things to look at…

Review your harassment policy, especially the sexual harassment part of it. Does it cover texts and/or social mediums like Twitter and Facebook? Talk with an employment attorney to understand what needs to get changed in your policy.

Once the changes are made, communicate to the team and people managers - what is and isn't appropriate via these 'new' mediums. Train everyone in your company.

Document all existing employees and add this to your onboarding process. Lastly, Google - "Sexual harassment 2.0" - you'll find some important online tips for this discussion. Yes, anyone can make a mistake - one drink too many at a conference, for instance - but that's why we need to talk about it. We need a dialogue on this topic and we need to establish expectations and/or social norms via these mediums. There is nothing funny about sexual predators and social mediums make it 'almost' okay to do things people would never think of doing in person. Trust me, six months ago, I would have laughed at this article much less penned it. Not anymore. I have seen this behaviour with my own eyes. Not cool. Decidedly not cool.

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The author is William Tincup, principal analyst at KeyInterval Research. Re-printed with permission.
Link: https://www.linkedin. com/pulse/sexual-harassment-20-william-tincup?trk=prof-post