The increase in working remotely has seen a corresponding increase in female staff receiving sexist comments about their appearance on online meetings, according to law firm Royds Withy King. It says comments have included references to wearing more make-up or wearing more revealing clothing, and increased concerns about sexist and offensive jokes being circulated in team message groups.
In more extreme cases, there have been examples of female staff having joined Zoom and Teams meetings to find a male colleague in the bath, colleagues exposing themselves, whether inadvertently or otherwise, and even involved in explicit sexual acts.
Caroline Doran Millett, international partner in the Employment Law team, says that businesses are failing to protect staff with out-of-date harassment policies that do not reflect the widespread shift to hybrid working patterns.
Says Doran Millet:
“Female employees are often put in uncomfortable or intolerable positions, humiliated in front of their male colleagues. Many do not know how to respond and feel that the only response is to see it as a joke. It isn’t. Employers are leaving themselves exposed to Employment Tribunal claims.”
In collaboration with Fram Search, a financial services recruiter, Royds Withy King conducted a straw poll of 100 financial services businesses on 15 October 2021 and found that 90% had not updated harassment policies in the past two years despite the largest shift in working patterns in a generation.
Section 26 of the Equality Act 2010 defines sexual harassment as “Engaging in unwanted conduct of a sexual nature, and the conduct has the purpose or effect of violating dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment”.
This could encompass a variety of actions and words, so it’s vital companies have policies in place, and make sure their employees understand and demonstrate acceptable behaviour at work. Employers can be liable for their employees’ actions, unless they can show they’ve taken reasonable steps to prevent them.
Doran Millet adds:
“Employers are liable for the harassment of staff wherever they work. They need to be able to demonstrate that they have taken meaningful and reasonable steps to prevent harassment. This does not appear to be happening in many instances. It is not acceptable for staff to face daily harassment online, whether intended or not. Employers who do not address these concerns face unlimited fines in Employment tTibunals and sanction from the Financial Conduct Authority, which views non-financial misconduct as serious as financial misconduct.”