Strategies for Confronting Harassment through Effective Communication
June is Effective Communications Month, a time to focus more intently on improving communication skills and strategies in all spaces, interactions, and relationships - including the workplace. Soteria Solutions is especially committed to employing effective communication as a tool to increase prosocial bystander intervention and improve respect, equity, and civility in professional spaces. Effective communication plays a critical role in promoting psychosocial wellness of all staff and confronting harm and harassment. Try a few of the tips below to reflect on your own communication patterns, strengths, and opportunities – and then reach out to Soteria Solutions to see how we can partner with your organization to achieve sustainable change by creating and maintaining safe and respectful working spaces void of incivility, harassment, violence and discrimination.
Understanding the Impact of Harassment
Workplace harassment can take many forms, including verbal and emotional abuse and coercion, discriminatory language and behavior, and either physical and/or emotional intimidation. Working in a hostile environment significantly impacts employee wellness, leading to decreased productivity, increased turnover, and potential legal ramifications for the organization.
Strategies for Confronting Harassment through Effective Communication
Foster Open Dialogue
Create Safer Spaces: Establish channels where employees feel comfortable sharing their experiences and concerns with supervisors without fear of retaliation and exposure.
Encourage Reporting: Promote a culture where employees are encouraged to report harassment. Ensure they know how to report incidents of harm confidentially, what their resources are, and be transparent about what happens to a report after it is filed.
Implement Clear and Transparent Policies
Communicate Policies Clearly: Make sure all employees understand the company’s harassment policies, including definitions of harassment, reporting procedures, and consequences for those who perpetrate harm. Work toward accountability at all levels of the organization.
Regular Updates: Review and update anti-harassment policies regularly and communicate any changes promptly.
Provide Organization-wide Training
Anti-harassment & Violence Prevention Training: Offer regular training sessions, workshops, and programming to all employees, including leadership. Prosocial bystander intervention training can be a highly effective tool in recognizing and acknowledging the ways harm and harassment are experienced, how our identities shape the power and safety that we feel in advocating for ourselves and others, and brainstorming strategies that promote taking action and fostering accountability.
Communication Skills Training: Enhance overall communication skills through workshops that cover active listening, conflict resolution, and respectful communication, taking into account that people communicate in different ways and have diverse personalities shaped by their identities and experiences.
Promote Respectful Communication
Model Behavior: Leadership must model respectful communication and behavior, and participate in the same training that all staff are expected to take.Set the tone from the top.
Encourage More Inclusive Language: Use inclusive language and encourage all employees to do the same. Confront those who are resistant to using more inclusive language by codifying respectful language through company policy and procedure. This helps to create a more open and welcoming environment for everyone.
Use Effective Channels
Regular Meetings: Hold regular team meetings to discuss workplace culture and address any emerging issues. Have one-on-one meetings with employees not only when something is wrong, but when things are going well.
Anonymous Feedback: Provide options for anonymous feedback to understand the climate and address issues that may not be reported openly. Always offer employees confidential spaces to share their concerns.
Support Victims and Witnesses
Offer Resources: Provide access to confidential counseling services, legal advice, and support groups for those who experience harm and harassment..
Protect Whistleblowers: Ensure that those who report harassment are protected from retaliation and supported throughout the process.
Implementing an Effective Communications Plan
Assessment and Planning
Survey Employees: Conduct surveys to gauge the current climate and identify areas for improvement. Every employee is different. One strategy will not work for all.
Set Objectives: Define clear objectives for what you want to achieve during Effective Communications Month, such as improved understanding of policies, climate surveys, focus groups, and/or individual meetings with supervisors, participation in prosocial bystander intervention training, and/or anonymous feedback.
Get Creative with Engagement and Participation
Interactive Workshops: Organize workshops that engage employees in discussions about harassment and communication strategies. Ask employees if they are interested in conducting workshops and/or assisting management with programming surrounding communication in the workplace.
Team-building Activities: Facilitate activities that build trust and improve communication among team members.
Monitoring and Evaluation
Track Progress: Monitor the effectiveness of the initiatives implemented during the month. Use metrics like increased reporting, survey feedback, employee satisfaction measures, and participation rates.
Get Creative: Employee satisfaction can be measured in a multitude of ways - wellbeing, psychosocial wellness, belonging, comfort in communicating with colleagues and management, and feelings of anxiety and/or panic.
Adjust Strategies: Be prepared to adjust strategies based on feedback and outcomes.
Sustaining the Effort
Ongoing Communication: Maintain regular communication about anti-harassment policies and support available to employees.
Continuous Improvement: Use feedback and data collected to continuously improve communication strategies and harassment prevention measures.
Effective Communication in Soteria Solutions Programming
Bystander Intervention Training:
Our Bystander Intervention Training programs emphasize the role of communication in identifying and addressing harmful behaviors. Participants learn how to intervene effectively and safely in various situations. Most critically, our bystander intervention training emphasizes developing skills to verbalize one’s strategies - using their own authentic words, in-person.
Tailored Workshops:
We design workshops that focus on enhancing communication skills, including active listening, assertiveness, empathy, and learning to articulate oneself clearly. These skills are crucial for creating safer, respectful, and more inclusive environments where people build confidence to confront and converse about difficult and/or harmful language and behavior.
Customized Solutions:
We collaborate with organizations to customize communication strategies that address the unique opportunities and challenges of their communities. This ensures that our solutions are relevant, sustainable, and impactful.
Technical Support and Resources:
We provide ongoing support, technical assistance, and resources to help individuals and organizations sustain effective communication in their policies and protocols. This includes training sessions, resource materials, evaluation, and consultation services.
Effective Communications Month is not only an excellent opportunity to address and confront harassment in the workplace but also to devise long-term prevention strategies for your workplace. By fostering open dialogue, implementing clear policies, providing training, working toward accountability, using creative channels, and supporting victims and witnesses, organizations can create a safer and more equitable work environment. At Soteria Solutions, we are committed to promoting effective communication as a means to create safer, more inclusive, and respectful environments. We work with your organization to create customized, innovative solutions that effect sustainable change that are research-based and proven to be effective strategies for prevention. Continuous efforts in improving communication will help sustain workplace wellness and ensure that all employees feel more comfortable and confident acting against harassment in all forms.
Developed by:
Casey Laplante, is the Vice President of Operations and manages the operations of the nonprofit organization while serving as the primary client contact for the organization, developing proposals, onboarding new partners, and allocating staff and resources for our workplace, college, and high school solutions.
Meera Seshadri, MSPH, is the Prevention Strategy Lead for Soteria Solutions and a Lead Trainer for both the Bringing in the Bystander® College Prevention Program and Workplace Solutions. She has spent more than a decade working as a health communications consultant, activist, and researcher at the intersections of health equity, gender justice and sexual and reproductive autonomy.