The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) met on June 20 to hear the findings of a workplace anti-harassment task force. The group was convened to study trends in the 28,000 workplace harassment charges received in fiscal year 2015, provide knowledge on risk factors, and suggest policies for reducing incidents.

Ultimately, the objective was to help both employees and employers prevent unwelcome conduct in the workplace before it rose to the level of illegal harassment.

The Findings

According to the report, of the 28,000 filings from employees working for private employers or for state and local government employers, approximately:

• 45% alleged harassment on the basis of sex,
• 34% alleged harassment on the basis of race,
• 19% alleged harassment on the basis of disability,
• 15% alleged harassment on the basis of age,
• 13% alleged harassment on the basis of national origin, and
• 5% alleged harassment on the basis of religion.

Among the more interesting statistics to employers:

• Gender: 25% of working women surveyed reported having experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.
• Sexual Orientation: 35% of LGB-identified respondents who are open at work about their preferences reported being harassed for them.
• Race and Ethnicity: 69% of survey respondents reported witnessing at least one ethnically-harassing behavior in the last two years.
• Age: In a sample of age 50+ workers in New York City, 25% reported that they or a family member had been subjected to unwelcome comments about their age.

The Recommendations

Culture and Leadership:

• Organizational cultures must discourage harassing behavior.
• Employers should communicate anti-harassment policies emphatically and often.

Training:

• Too much focus of current training has been focused on avoiding legal liability.
• The new focus must be on workplace civility training and bystander intervention.
• Training should be conducted in person and not online.

Awareness:

• The task force recommended an “It’s On Us” campaign aimed at fighting workplace harassment by encouraging awareness, accountability, and intervention.
• Risk factors were provided so that employers could work to prevent specific types of harassment. These included workplaces where some workers don’t conform to social norms, workplaces with high-value employees, and workplaces with many young workers with less awareness of the issue.

You can learn more about the U.S. Equal Employment Commission and the Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace by reading the full Executive Summary and Recommendations.