S2 EP05 - Sexual Harassment

Sara: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Out of the Office and I'm delighted to have the wonderful Dr. Enya Doyle on today's episode. Enya, do you want to come on and say hello to our listeners and yeah, share a little bit more about who you are and what you do.

Enya: I'd love to. Hi everyone. I'm Enya, Dr. Enya Doyle if you want to be formal. I am an anti-harassment consultant. I've been doing this sort of work for about eight years and I'm based in London but as you may have already gathered, I am originally from Ireland.

Sara: Also for those that don't know, I'm also half Irish so where abouts in Ireland are you from?

Enya: From the very north, well from County Armagh which is for everyone who's not familiar with Ireland half an hour south of Belfast. Hopefully that makes more sense. Where are you half from Sara?

Sara: Where am I half from? Where's 50% of me from? From Waterford so yeah, quite south of Ireland. Yeah, I really want to go back out there and actually take my dog out there to see all the family and there's just so many beautiful places to go for walks and just be one with nature to be honest in Ireland. I feel like it's just such a beautiful country.

Enya: That's what we pride ourselves on. There's definitely a lot else going on there but yeah, definitely good walks.

Sara: Before we jumped into the stream yard, I was laughing about the fact that we both were talking about how we want to be on Gogglebox and I feel like as we were talking about it, I was like, I think this might be the main motivation behind creating Out of the Office because it feels like you're taking a little bit of Gogglebox into the podcasting world. So I feel like I'm maybe giving you a gift of fulfilling your dream of being on Gogglebox by being on this show. 

Enya: Was I on Gogglebox? Technically. Hopefully, do you know what? 

Sara: Maybe this podcast will help whoever the producers and casting directors are for that show to go, maybe those two would be good on Gogglebox.

Who knows? 

Enya: Yes, I know we should have them and it'll be really important for us to have them when we do the promo for this.

Sara: Well, you know, we've got to shoot our shots, see what happens. Yeah, you miss 

Enya: 100% of the chances you don't take. 

Sara: Exactly, exactly. Well, let's get into today's episode and I'm really looking forward to this because I feel like it's a really important topic to talk about in the context of the workplace.

But also I feel like the episode, I mean, I was struggling to decide which clip from this episode to actually use because there is just so much that happens in this particular episode that is just deeply problematic. So for our listeners, we're looking at the episode Sexual Harassment, which is episode two or episode two of season two. So still quite early on in the show.

And just as a fun fact, they actually had to put a warning when they can't, like they streamed the show that there would be references to like, you know, of a sexual nature. I don't know the specifics in terms of what the warning label said, but I believe there are very few episodes that have that, but the context of the show, they did add that. And also it wasn't allowed to be aired in Kentucky.

That's really like just to put into context how problematic this episode is. So basically what happens is the regional manager, Michael Scott, kind of crosses a lot of boundaries. He's like forwarding these email chains that have really inappropriate videos in them. He's making gestures and comments, not just in this episode, but he makes it throughout the entire kind of show. But then there's also, you know, a bit there in terms of how Toby, the HR rep, responds to it. He then does like a refresher on the sexual harassment policy training, which I think, I don't know how you feel about it. I know how I feel about it. And then we also get introduced to a very brand new character in the show called Todd Packer, who is probably the most vile character in the show. And I feel like if you hate him, like then that makes you a good person because he is really gross. Like he is not a nice person, but yeah, he makes disgusting remarks. And there's a particular scene where he talks about an actual sexual harassment incident that has happened in the workplace and calls the person who was kind of called out and talked about and complained about this incident as someone that is a bimbo and then also calls them a bitch as well. So, you know, and basically says that they've just whistle-blowed for no reason, for example. So there's just so much that happens in this episode. So I feel like we're going to struggle to keep it to 30 minutes, if I'm honest. But let's just watch one small clip now to give us a bit of context into, I guess, what we're going to be chatting about in today's episode.

Yeah, brace yourself, everyone. Here we go.

So that was the clip that I decided to go for, which is probably one of the better ones, a little bit softer than some of the other stuff that happens in the show. But I guess, Enya, I would just love to just dive in and get your kind of overview of when you watched this episode and what was coming to mind, you know, considering what you do as a profession.

Enya: Yeah, I think it's amazing how much you can fit into 21-minute things. That's genuinely one of my favourite things about the first time that I watched this intentionally rather than just because watching TV. I was like, they've really hit all of the key markers of things that people say and do in the workplace that you're just like, is this my life? Is this really happening? And that particular scene is probably one of my favourite examples of why I feel like I am on an uphill climb every time I meet a new client.

Because I don't know the context of whether this is a HR tick box exercise, whether they're in legal murky water and they're like, oh, we're going to just lay this on you, we're going to get you to sign a non-disclosure agreement and then we'll be having a lovely time. Or whether it's a proactive, productive, we're on the front foot, we want to be really proactive about this, we care about the people who work for us.

Novel.

I think this episode does an amazing job, amazing job of just being like, here are all of the things that I think are being said when I am not in companies. And, low.

Sara: And you know when you said about the different ways that companies get in touch with you, and you obviously kind of, when you start that relationship with that client and you don't know the context, right? It could be that it's a reaction to something, it could be a HR tick box exercise, and then there might be that proactive element, which hopefully a lot more companies are doing because, like you say, they care about the people that work in those companies. What do you typically see for a lot of corporates? Like, what is the main reason that they come to kind of consult with you?

Enya: Well, currently the main reason that people are coming to consult with me is because the law in the UK is changing in October. So, for listeners that don't know, the Worker Protection Act is being enforced from October, which will make employers responsible for preventing sexual harassment reasonably, preventing sexual harassment rather than just responding to it. So that's the bulk of my inbox of the minute is, the law will change and we'd like to get ahead of it, whether it's again tick box or because it's like, "Great, this law is changing, we probably ought to be at least compliant and we want to be more than that." So there's definitely that element, but I think a lot of the time people contact me because they're out of their depth, and I think when it comes to harassment, when it comes to sexual harassment, it's really easy to feel out of your depth because it's so massive and it feels either really like minefieldy to navigate as the kind of, as Michael says, like, "Am I not allowed to tell jokes?" It's not about, "It's not allowed to tell jokes." I mean, it is, but also it's not, let's not reduce it to that and it's to a talent. And there's that kind of element of it, of like, "What am I allowed to say? What are, how should we change our policies? What are my employees supposed to be able to do?" And then there's the kind of, okay, protecting ourselves, protecting PR, protecting the reputation of the company, and then almost exclusively about 15 minutes into a meeting they'll go, "And obviously we want to protect." And then they'll almost definitely say women, even though obviously, and of course, there are plenty of, there are plenty of people who are on the receiving end of sexual harassment who are not women.

Sara: It was so fascinating hearing you talk about that. I had a question in my head and it's gone from my brain. What was I going to ask? Oh, that was it. Obviously in that clip, Michael Scott is like, as you were saying, "Oh, you know, where do you draw the line? What, you know, I'm just trying to tell a joke." And I feel like, and I imagine a lot of the barriers in this line of work, similar to, you know, being a DEI professional is like, "What can we say? Oh, you know, what happened to banter?" And, you know, it's just a bit of fun, you know, we want to have to get to know our colleagues and, "Oh, we can't say anything anymore." And it's so frustrating because, you know, as we see in the episode, it's not about not being able to say any jokes. It's just not saying the ones that are offensive and inappropriate and make someone feel uncomfortable, right? And I just don't understand how people conflate maybe someone coming in and talking about sexual harassment policies and training or coming in delivering DEI training and thinking, "Right, we're only here to suck the fun out of everything." And I'm like, “No, you can still have fun without being a sexual harasser or a harassment person or being like an absolute, you know, discriminatory, bias, stereotypical kind of joke-telling person." Like there are other things to do and say, right? I guess if I'm just thinking about our listeners and what they're doing in their day-to-day role, and I reckon people must feel reluctant to call people out on things and to raise concerns with their managers and to talk about things because of that backlash. What would you say people should do in that instance when they are feeling that way? Because I feel like in the episode, you know, you see, obviously I've only shown the clip of Michael and Toby in that room, but as I said about that Todd Packer character, he goes into the centre of the office where everybody's sat and he's telling the story about this person and the sexual harassment incident. You know, he's saying some obscene things and you can see people squirming and getting uncomfortable. 

And I have seen that happen in workplaces and offices all the time, but everyone just kind of sits there. And it's like a mixture of power dynamics, right? You know, if it's somebody more senior than you and obviously Todd Packer and Michael get on really well. So it's like, "Oh, am I going to speak up against someone who is the best friend of the manager?" Possibly not. But also the bystander effect and that essentially where the more people that are present in the room, the less likely someone is to stand up and say, "Hey, that's completely inappropriate and that's wrong." So I feel like there's obviously a lot of things happening there, but I guess I'm just reflecting and opening out to a discussion of like, what should people do in that moment when maybe something similar is happening for them? 

Enya: I think there's a lot of this that feels like the illness is on the people who don't have power in the room. And I think the episode does a really brilliant job of exemplifying the role of trust when it comes to reporting harass, because realistically in that room, you should have people in authority positions, Michael being one of them, Toby being another, they should be setting the tone and they should be setting the standards and the boundaries. And whilst the bystander effect is absolutely crucial and critical, that's fine when we're talking about being on the tube and there's no one on the tube. We're just all equals as far as we're concerned. The bystander effect is really interesting there. Taking into the work place, the role of trust is massive because they know that the best possible outcome here is to be reprimanded in front of all of the rest of their peers. So they squirm together in this collective, this isn't on. You see throughout the episode, some of them giving it a go, some of them, you know, they definitely feel able to kind of talk back, but they also don't expect anything to change. They don't expect there to be a decent or curious response from Michael. Michael is very much like, this is my life, these are my thoughts, I'm not going to change. Jokes are supposed to be inappropriate and we'll come back to the word inappropriate in a minute, because that's one of the things that winds me up to no end is the word inappropriate. I like to get rid of it entirely, but I think the trust element of, okay, who is going to be on our side? And realistically, when it comes to companies, yes, I'm more than happy and we should be delivering this training to your entire company. 

But first, we need to make sure that your leadership and line managers understand what's going on. This starts on the top. The education piece is very much one that you all have been, we all have been vastly undereducated about how to help each other when it comes to stuff like this. I'd say most people wouldn't be able to define harassment, they can give the kind of those inappropriate jokes. Okay, thank you. Can you give me anything else about how it might make people feel what the impact or the, you know, there's the training, the five minute review, very corporate America. We're going to do a five minute review of this massive talk like the average, but there's that element of in it, which is that intent doesn't matter. And that's, that's on the slide at one point says intent doesn't matter. And in many ways, in the UK, at least, intent doesn't matter. Insofar as there are two legal aspects of it, it can either be intended to cause harm, or it can have the impact of causing harm. So in many ways, intent doesn't matter if the impact is there. But if you intend to cause me harm, and I laugh it off, and I'm entirely unaffected by it, you still were doing sexual harassing behaviour, even if I'm like, I'm not bothered by it. The key one of that is catcalling. There was like loose women, for example, discussed the loose women discussed whether catcalling was a compliment. Some people see catcalling as a compliment, if you see it as a compliment, even if that's how you view it, if it was intended to degrade you, in some way, it's still sexual harassment, even if you thought it was amazing, even if it was the compliment of your day, the impact versus intention, I think, kind of winding back to your reflections, I think the trust is built by being educated. And I don't mean in the degree sense, I mean, in the training sense, the training this five minute corporate America isn't going to help you be a better manager. But also, if you don't know what's going on, then you can't be expected to be a better ally to your colleagues, if you've absolutely no idea what the law actually says, what the policy actually says.

Sara: There's so much there I want to unpack. The first thing is when you talked about that intent versus impact. And it makes me think about when I've delivered, you know, DEI training and someone in the room, especially when we're talking about micro aggressions, they'll say, Oh, I love when someone asks me, where are you really from, because they're showing that they're interested in me and my culture, my heritage. There's other examples where, you know, people are like, but I like people asking me about my religion, I like people asking me about XYZ. And it's so true, because someone may have the intention of minimising or trivialising or whatever it may be about that person's identity. But that person receive on the receiving end might not see in that way, and might actually see as a bit of a compliment and someone being genuinely interested in their background, which is really lovely. I you know, I wish I could be them to be honest, because I mean, to be honest, I might not even be in this profession if that's how I felt and saw those experiences.

But yeah, so it's just it's really, really fascinating. And I wonder if that's sometimes a barrier, because people will go, but I know someone who doesn't see in that way, you know, they'll say, I've asked someone this before, and they've been so open and shared or they've laughed at it, they thought it was funny, I said the sexist joke, a woman's laugh. So that means by that measure, it's fine. But yeah, it's again, as you say, it's back to the basics of what's the intention there? And actually breaking down the language, because are we actually using language that degrades, and then reinforces stereotypes reinforces a gender imbalance, a power imbalance, all of those things. And that's what we need to interrogate if we want to shift the inequality that we see in the world. But I thought it was really interesting when you talked about the word inappropriate. And I really want to unpack that with you. So here is your your free reign to take however much time you want to just share with our listeners about why you want the word inappropriate to be in the bin.

Enya: Yes, firmly in the bin. Home, the word inappropriate is so often used. But going straight from what you just said, Sara, right? If I say to you that's inappropriate, you go, well, it was appropriate at home, or it's appropriate in my team, or it's appropriate with my family, or it's appropriate when I'm sitting with friends, or it's appropriate on the tube. And everyone then goes into, well, what's the context for appropriate? Who decides appropriate? Appropriate is perfectly subjective. Inappropriate also perfectly subjective. What's appropriate for me to do with my family in terms of what I've been raised to believe is appropriate. And then what I kind of condition socially outside of that can sometimes be very two, two very different things. So instead of saying words like inappropriate, I like to point out that particularly with the work that I do around harassment and discrimination, it's not inappropriate. It's illegal. Now, if I say to you that's illegal behaviour, Sara, you're far less likely to go, but I think jokes are funny. You're far more likely to go, okay, that's a different, that's a different space. That's a different accusation altogether. The inappropriate is lends itself to, oh, stop being so woke. Of course you think that way because you're an EDI consultant. Yeah, I know that that, like, it can, you just take a joke. I know it's your profession, but like, have you not got a personal view on this? And I'm like, personally, I'm hilarious. I believe that could be the case.

And also that is illegal. If I don't want that conduct, if I don't want you to do that, and I feel like it's intimidating, it creates a hostile environment, I feel it degraded, you have intended to humiliate me, even if that's not actually what's happened, or it's offensive on any of the seven protected characteristics, then no, it's not inappropriate. It's illegal. And if I start using words like illegal, people then start to be a little bit more silent. Whereas inappropriate doesn't have, doesn't have the way in, because why should it have the way? It's personal preference. Whereas we're not talking about personal preferences here. We're talking about illegal and legal, not even immoral and moral. We're talking about in the UK currently, harassment is defined as X. And that's what you just did.

Sara: I love that. It just goes to show the weight of what even when you said, that's just illegal. It's like, I felt like my, you know, my posture kind of improved a little bit. And I was like, Oh, that's really serious. It does. You take it so much more seriously, right? And we do soften things, or we try and like spare feelings or try to not make things so,

I guess I really said serious. I was thinking about a third word, but I can't think of it. But essentially, you know, it just kind of demonstrates directly, it's very direct of this is completely illegal. And there's no place for it here. You know, it's not a context of what someone may or may not find funny and what may or may not make someone comfortable. It's outright, you know, illegal. I love it.

Enya: The other word that I tend to use is intolerant. Because again, intolerable implies that multiple people find it intolerable. Whereas inappropriate implies that I personally am like, whereas intolerable is like, I'd like you to stop it now. And I'd like you to never repeat it anywhere else. It also takes off the illness of you deciding whether your language is appropriate. No, no, we collectively get to decide whether your behaviour is acceptable and is legal or illegal. We collectively get to decide whether that's something that we want in our workplace. And particularly given that workplaces now are very much moving towards, or have already been there for a long time, values based cultures of we are a valued based company. Okay, well, this is about what's tolerable and intolerable. Let's not talk about inappropriate. Illegal also, lest we forget, should be the bare minimum. The law is not there as a best practice guy. You as an EDI consultant are doing a lot of best practice stuff. And I'm coming in being like, you haven't even hit the bare minimum here, kiddos. You haven't even done the bare minimum. Like you can't hang out with Sara until we do this. We need to do this one before you can do the, okay, we're going for best practice in terms of belonging and in terms of culture minimum. That's really low bar, really low bar. Solo on the floor bar.

Sara: Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting you talk about the policies and things because obviously in that episode and with workplace, what would you say is best practice when it comes to those policies and then maybe even just sharing a little bit in terms of what kind of training you find works well and doesn't work well, because there's a particular instance in the episode, which I've definitely witnessed myself that's happened in workplace. So Pam, one of the characters essentially says, and she's a woman, she says, whenever there's a sexual harassment training, I find that's when I get harassed the most. I've seen it when I deliver a DEI training or I've been in DEI trainings, it almost like creates this aura that people almost want to add more jokes. And I'm like, no, no, we've literally just talked about this and like, let's break it down. So, you know, that can happen as a like knee jerk reaction and a response to when people externally come in and deliver these trainings. And so from your experience, what is best practice and what would you say kind of helps to avoid that as something that happens? 

Enya: I think best practice in terms of policy, starting with the law, starting there very clearly, like stating out where you're taking this from, that this isn't someone, this isn't your head of EDI or your HR business partner being like, I just really don't like inappropriate behaviour. It's illegal. Did I say that already? 

Starting from there and then not spending an awful lot of time dictating what is right and what is wrong. A lot of policies that I do reviews over audit of, they'll spend an awful lot of time listing examples. And I'm like listing examples is grand, but it can seem a little bit like, okay, so that's the full extent. As long as you don't do those things, it's fine. It's not those things. And it also lends itself to having the bias of whoever has written the policy, whoever's in charge of the policy will put in ones that they think that they have heard. That being said, I think that good policies are accompanied by training and that training that is accompanying this has case studies of what would happen if x were to happen. So if x happens and someone does any of the things that Michael does in that episode, take that's what she said jokes. That's what Michael's fear of things. That's what she said jokes. Take that's what she said joke. 

Okay. If someone were to say that in the context of sexual harassment, these are the benchmarks that it would have to reach in order for it to be sexual. Please note that most of them are sexually sexual. And, you know, maybe he's set up to do the sexual ones. He's definitely towards the end, particularly set up so that every part of him has to say that's what she said. But if it's set up in a sexual way, then we're into the realm of sexual harassment. This is what you should do if you witness it, if you experience it. This is what we will do if you report it to us. At one point Toby says to Pam, that's a really good point, or words to those effect. He doesn't take it anywhere. He doesn't say we need to look into the fact that when like your mum's coming in and you feel really uncomfortable, this is just before she does the talk to Cameron and says every time this happens, I get sexually harassed. But being able to kind of take her aside and say, you know what the processes are here and you can find them anywhere, you know where to get them, 101 of policy shouldn't have to go hunting really deep in the internet to find it, to also find that it hasn't been updated since 2020 and also that the named person on it no longer works here. Or is it generic email? I mean all of these things are just general policy best practice, but I'm never done being impressed of when I ask, does this person still work here? And they'll be like, no, they left in 2019. I'm like, the policy says it's been updated since then. What did you update? The font? Like are you well? So I would definitely say flowcharts, process flowcharts. If there's one thing that you want to change about your policy, if you're like, yeah, obviously it's got the law in it. We'll take out some of the examples. I think

I would say definitely make sure that the process flowcharts are there and that your policies actually reflect practice. And if you need to improve stuff, then there will be an interim period where you are improving things. And you can be clear about that too, of this is where we're heading towards. Sometimes we don't get it right. Okay, great. But we're heading towards this. We are heading towards consistency. We are heading towards treating these things seriously. We are heading towards you all being treated equitably when you report it. Although maybe that doesn't happen currently.

Sara: Yeah. And it makes me think when I read certain company DEI policies or statements, and it's like, you know, we have a zero tolerance attitude to discrimination and bias. I'm like, how can you have zero tolerance when there's no way to even bring it up that this has happened? Like people don't even know the process of who do they speak to. There is just a generic, as you say, email inbox of HR at whatever. And it's like, how is anyone supposed to feel comfortable that could go to anybody that doesn't feel any personal element there to go, hey, this is what's happened. And then imagine if it's your manager, like, who are you going to bypass? Because if your flow chart is just bring it up with your manager, but your manager is the culprit. Absolutely. You know, it's really bizarre that some companies haven't even thought about those things. And as you say, it's like, these are some basic, basic steps that need to be taken that are definitely overlooked, which is such a shame that there will be people struggling with these things in silence.

Enya: For sure. I think one of the other things that I would add to the policy is having ways to report anonymously. If you can find a way to have people report anonymously, that will build trust because they'll be able to see that something's being done about it. Because I spend a lot of my time, I'm sure you do, too, saying there's more than one way to handle a lot of this. There's more than one way to deal with this. If someone reports that Team X has got a culture that feels a bit odd, or there's one woman in the team and she doesn't really feel comfortable with Member of Staff X, then there are hundreds of ways to deal with that that aren't just making her write a report of all of the times that she's felt uncomfortable around him. You can proactively address that team. You can do lots of other work with the entirety of the team without singling that particular Member of Staff for a workplace investigation. But I get real tired, real quick of companies that are like, "Well, we can't do anything about it until it's put in a formal complaint."

Lies. Fake news. False.

Sara: It's so true. We are coming up towards the end and I feel like I still want to ask you about a million things and I imagine our listeners will want to take your brain's tea. Is there anything you want to share with some final thoughts about the episode or generally about this topic that you think is really important for listeners to take away and remember?

Enya: Yeah, I think one of the key parts of handling this in-house is that we really have to get away from the blame culture. I think the onus on people who are reporting is really, really high, but it also creates this very, very toxic minefield for people where victimisation is a part of the Equality Act. In lots of the tribunals that people win. There's another element of all of this which is that you're made to feel worse for reporting. We see that in the office episode. You've got to be really clear as a company, as a team leader, you've got to be really clear that people will not be worse off for having reported this because the impact of it happening and then the impact of not being believed after reporting it is absolutely heinous and I definitely would quite like to get rid of that from this process too.

Sara: I totally agree. It would be good to get rid of that, wouldn't it? Pretty critical that we do. Well, thank you first of all. Thank you so much for just sharing everything that you've shared with us in today's episode. Before we kind of wrap up, in the show Michael has a world's best boss mug that he bought himself and so I'm asking all my guests if they bought themselves a world's best something mug, what would theirs be? So Enya, what would your mug say?

Enya: I think I would genuinely buy this for myself. I actually back myself to buy this, but I think if I had one of those mugs I would say world's best eye roll because I spent so much of my life rolling my eyes and I have never been more delighted to work for myself than when I get emails and don't have to be in an office with other people. So I just roll my eyes real far back in my head at what I'm receiving. Oh yes, so I had to have one of those mugs that would say world's best eye roll.

Sara: I absolutely love that and also snap on the working for myself like it's the best gift I've ever given myself to be honest. So I wouldn't change it for the world. Before we finish, I'm sure our listeners will want to find out more about you. So where can they find more about you? What kind of social platforms do you use that they can kind of get in touch with you on?

Enya: Sure, and the best way to get in touch with me is on LinkedIn. Dr. Enya Doyle, you will find me, it will say the harassment doctor in that title and there aren't that many Enya Doyle’s on LinkedIn so you should be fine. There is a nurse in Atlanta, not that one, not that one. So don't connect with her unless you want to and or know her leave her alone. But you can definitely find me there. You can also find my newsletter where I give out free advice which is called Dr. Doyles Delicate Dilemmas. I do monthly webinars on that too which are also free but then obviously you can contact me. If you'd like to pay me to work with your organisation I would be more than happy to, whether it's a worker protection act or more generally around harassment or discrimination. It would be a pleasure.

Sara: Yeah, I joined one of those webinars and I thought they were amazing and just so so helpful. So if anyone is thinking to join them definitely do, you won't regret it. So awesome, thank you again Enya. This has been such a pleasure and I'm sure our guests will be messaging us to be like get her back, get Enya back. Best goggle box impressions for the next one I imagine. We'll have to record it on an actual sofa with like a takeaway on our laps.

Enya: Oh yeah, I have to 100% comment to you live from a sofa near you. Yeah, perfect.

Sara: Love it, awesome. Well thank you everyone for listening and thank you again Enya. We're sure to have you back and have a great day. Thanks everyone.