Time’s up on Empty Zero-Tolerance Slogans: A National Survey Concerning Sexual Harassment
Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to examine the employers’ role in the prevention of sexual harassment within the healthcare workforce. We surveyed all the UK medical schools to inquire about their policies, procedures, complaint numbers and outcomes under the freedom of information law Design/methodology/approach: We submitted freedom of information requests to all 36 medical schools in the UK seeking information on all submitted sexual harassment complaints between January 2008 and January 2018. This included each school disciplinary policies in general and those concerning sexual harassment in specific, the number of formal complaints, and the final outcome of all investigations. Findings: We received interpretable responses from 30/36 contacted medical schools (83%). All 30 schools confirmed having generic code of conduct policies (100%), however, only 12/36 schools (40%) had specific policies and procedures to deal with sexual harassment concerning staff, students or both. None offered any formal training to dealing with sexual harassment. Only three schools confirmed having >5 sexual harassment complaints (3/30, 10%), thirteen had <5 complaints (13/30, 43%) and eleven had no complaints at all (11/30, 37%). Research limitations/implications: Policies, structures and processes alone are not sufficient for addressing sexual harassment. Knowing the policies and procedures alone will not prevent misconduct, keeping to the rules and regulations will. Medical Schools should rise to the challenge through concrete boundaries-related educational interventions, not empty slogans of zero tolerance. Originality/value: This paper highlights the employers’ obligation to engage staff in training to ensure compliance with specific rules and regulations for preventing sexual harassment in the healthcare workplace.
