Why is sexual harassment and assault still happening at work?

This is an audio transcript of the Working It podcast episode: ‘Why is sexual harassment and assault still happening at work?’

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Madison Marriage
Sadly, any workplace can be prone to issues around abuse of power. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a swimming pool or a cinema or a bank or an arm of the government. Anywhere where you’ve got hierarchies, you can have people abusing their positions and making it very difficult for people to speak up.

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Isabel Berwick
Hello and welcome to Working it from the Financial Times with me, Isabel Berwick.

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The voice you just heard is Madison Marriage. She’s special investigations editor here at the FT. Madison and her team of reporters have spent many years exposing abusive workplace practices, whether that’s the mistreatment of migrant workers in the British fishing industry or the sexual harassment of female staff at the Presidents Club charity dinners.

In this episode, we’re looking at abusive behaviour in the office with a particular focus on why, even after #MeToo campaigns, sexual harassment and assault are still happening. And we’ll offer some practical advice on what immediate action you can take if it happens to you or a colleague. We’ll hear more from Madison and also from FT business columnist Helen Thomas and then Tessa West, an NYU psychology professor who specialises in conflicts and dealing with difficult and abusive colleagues.

We wanted to dig into this most distressing of workplace topics following several recent high-profile FT stories outlining allegations of harassment of female staff by the star architect David Adjaye and by the hedge fund manager Crispin Odey. There’s also been widespread reporting in the British press of allegations of sexual misconduct and even rape at the UK employers’ organisation, the CBI. Madison says that in many cases it’s hard to get people who’ve been bullied, harassed or abused to speak about what happened to them.

Madison Marriage
People genuinely fear for their lives sometimes when it comes to speaking out and they want to because they want justice for themselves and they also want to make sure other people don’t go through what they go through. But they fear that the individual they’re coming up against can crush them financially, can ruin the lives of their families, can kind of blackball them in an industry, can chase them legally. And I have to say, as a journalist, sometimes these are things you think about as well. And, you know, I’ve had personal security issues in the past and pretty nasty emails and messages and tweets coming my way. And so getting some security advice and the security advice scared the living daylights out of me. It kind of made, in some ways it made the situation worse. So I ended up kind of booby-trapping my home and just in case somebody tried to break in and I was warned to make sure I wasn’t being followed anywhere. But I think particularly with the rich and powerful, I think the kind of legal tools that they’ve got access to are really intimidating.

Isabel Berwick
Yes. And is there a role for HR? I mean, what have you come up against HR in any of the investigations you’ve done? Because it has a very ambivalent role, I think, for a lot of women who’ve suffered in these cases.

Madison Marriage
Every story I’ve ever written to do with bullying, harassment, sexual assault in the workplace, HR has been a malevolent force, not a force for good. So I would advise people to be very wary of HR. My experience is that they are there to help the company, not the people lower down the ranks.

Isabel Berwick
Yes. So your most recent investigation into the hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, what surprised or shocked you the most while you and the team were doing the reporting?

Madison Marriage
There was so many things that surprised me. A big one was just how bad some of the abuse was that the women we interviewed encountered. And I’ve been asked, do you become slightly desensitised to what you’re hearing? And the truthful answer is never. These stories always shock me and really affect me. I feel, you know, extremely upset on behalf of the people I’ve interviewed. So that surprises me.

I think the other thing that really shocked me with the Crispin Odey investigation is the fact that arguably we are coming to it a bit late. So over the two years prior to us publishing our investigation, eight women had already come forward either to the police or to the media with quite similar stories of sexual assault and sexual harassment. And all of those stories just bounced off Crispin Odey. None of them had any impact on his professional career or his social status. The financial regulator in the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority, we now know, had been kind of monitoring or investigating Odey Asset Management and looking at sexual misconduct at the firm for at least two years, and it hadn’t taken any action.

Isabel Berwick
So if nothing had stuck for two years, Madison, why do you think your investigation had such a big impact?

Madison Marriage
So I think the difference about our investigation was firstly, it included the accounts of 13 women. Thirteen’s a really big number for these kind of stories. Of the 13, I think eight or nine had never spoken to the press before. So a lot of it was new information. I was also given the bandwidth by the FT’s magazine editor, Matt Vella, to write this in horrifying detail. So it was an 8,000-word piece, which I think is one of the longest articles the FT’s ever run. Being able to tell the women stories in full detail, I think it was very moving and I think made a difference.

Isabel Berwick
Do you think this will change things in the City?

Madison Marriage
Yes, I think it will. And we’ve received lots of messages from people who work in the City saying they’re so grateful for this investigation, not just because we’re, you know, holding one individual to account, but because hopefully this will send a message to other people and other organisations why this kind of thing is going on, that people can’t turn a blind eye to this kind of abuse. And I think there’s a good example I can give you, which is I did a series of reports on bullying at KPMG, the accountancy firm, a few years ago and I think when I first started reporting on it the general consensus I was getting from current and former employees were that when they made these complaints, they fell on deaf ears. And that is not the case today. I think the firm is very quick to act when somebody does make a formal complaint now, I think. I could be, get in touch if I’m wrong on that.

Isabel Berwick
We must, at this point make it very clear that Crispin Odey has strenuously disputed all of the allegations against him. I also talked to Helen Thomas, FT business columnist. Helen has reported on the City and British business for many years. And she points out that where there is a very powerful and wealthy founder or CEO, it can present particular issues around workplace conduct.

Helen Thomas
Where you have a founder whose name is above the door, who is a very dominant personality and the success of the business is very bound up with their brand, I think it does present some particular challenges around behaviour and culture and governance in terms of, you know, how a board can control that individual. Having said that, in some ways I worry more about the invisible stuff much further down the chain, because part of the reason that those people get reported on is because they’re high profile, is because their name is above the door. The FT and other news organisations can’t go after every sort of mid manager or division head who’s behaving like this. It’s not gonna happen. And I hope that what we’re going through at the moment sparks a bit of an appreciation that this not only can happen anywhere, it does happen everywhere. So companies need to be prepared for that and need to have the policies in place to make sure that they are going to be aware of what’s going on, but also be able to respond to it appropriately. I also do think, you know, I mean, the Odey situation is still playing out, but it will be interesting to see how people who were senior in that organisation for a long time sort of go on to the next stage of their careers and to what extent they are tainted by the fact that this seemingly was tolerated for a very long time.

Isabel Berwick
What are your impressions about bullying and harassment at work? Do you think things have got better in the City and beyond since you started reporting?

Helen Thomas
Yes, I do. I mean, I actually started my career in the City. I worked for an investment bank briefly when I left university. And I think the fact that we’re having this conversation and the stories that we’re seeing in corporate Britain but around the world and the effect they’re having is a sign of that progress. I was talking to a law firm the other day that does a lot of work in this area, and they were saying that three or four years ago investigations were just not a part of their practice and now it’s about a third of their workload. So, I mean, that just shows you that companies, when they’re confronted with these types of issues, are reacting very differently to how they would have in the past. And as we’ve seen with stories like Odey Asset Management, the CBI here in the UK, when these stories hit the headlines, the reaction of everyone is very different to how it would have been in the past.

Isabel Berwick
I wondered if boards might have a bigger role to play in this. I haven’t read much about the role of boards. Do they have much oversight on culture?

Helen Thomas
I think it varies hugely. One of the things with the CBI was that the board didn’t have the head of HR and they’re sort of head of those. That type of function wasn’t represented on the board. And that’s something they’ve changed. You’ve got to believe that the way the news flow has been going, that every corporate board in the land has turned around and said, what are we doing on this? What are our policies? What have we had through our whistleblowing channels? Are we sure we’re doing all the right things?

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Isabel Berwick
Helen makes an important point there about the fact we’re not gonna read media investigations into lower-level staff who harass others. So it’s really up to organisations to protect employees. But so many people still get away with it and that’s really depressing. But if you or a colleague are being victimised, there are things you can do about it. I spoke to an expert on this. Tessa West is professor of psychology at New York University and the author of Jerks at Work: Toxic Co-workers and What to Do About Them. It’s a great book, by the way. Here’s Tessa.

Tessa West
I think the first thing you wanna do before you complain or you go to HR is document, document, document. Every detail matters, from the time it occurred to who also was present. Write it down as soon as it happened because memories are fallible, you’re gonna forget the details. And the biggest reason why people fail to get support for these types of things in the workplace is because when people ask them for those details, when they say, OK, you’re telling me this person bullied me, what exactly happened? They get fuzzy on the details and that’s when credibility falls apart. So the more you can document, the sooner in time from when it actually happened, the better off you’ll be.

Isabel Berwick
Right. Is that the sense that some people often get quite emotional, so it becomes almost like an emotional reaction rather than a sort of documented reaction?

Tessa West
Yeah, and I think that’s natural. I think most of us when we’re harassed — and I’ve been on the receiving end of this — have to take a moment to calm down. And usually the first thing we wanna do is call a good friend and colleague and complain about them. But before you do any of those things, just write down what happened or even if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, I’ve taken out my phone on the voice memo before and just said what happened to my phone, and then kind of worked through how I want to document it afterwards.

Isabel Berwick
And we have a lot of managers and leaders listening to this, you know. How do people usually react to serious allegations in their team and how should they react?

Tessa West
I think you usually get a divided response. Half the people are gonna immediately side with the victim, and half the people probably are just gonna say nothing at all. So, you know, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that they side with the perpetrator, that just means they don’t want to get involved. So, if you’re on the receiving end and you’re looking for support, you’re probably actually gonna get just a lot of crickets, a lot of nothing, a lot of people who just don’t wanna get involved in the situation.

Isabel Berwick
Right. I presume that ramps up the distress on the part of the person who’s been on the end of the harassment or abuse.

Tessa West
Yeah, absolutely and a lot of times with abuse, it starts off small. Usually your abuser is someone that you know, they don’t just kind of jump into the deep end and immediately start harassing you, you know, on a 10 on a 1 to 10 scale. It’s a bunch of little things that escalate over time. And if people don’t really see those little things as harassment, they’re not gonna kind of buy into the narrative. So by the time the really big thing has happened to you, you don’t have a ton of support. You start questioning yourself, did I do something to deserve this? And victims commonly blame themselves for these types of situations. And I think that’s really kind of something we need to be better about watching out for in the workplace.

Isabel Berwick
So be alert to anything that feels off to you right from the start.

Tessa West
Even little things that can seem flattering at first, Oh, you know, you look really beautiful today or you’re not only smart, but you’re just also really elegant. You know, little things like that don’t feel like harassment per se. Those are usually the first things that start to happen before the harasser ramps up. So the minute you start seeing these things, start documenting those things immediately. Don’t slough them off or say, oh, well, he probably didn’t mean it like that or that was flattering, so I’m not going to worry about it. Just document it. You don’t have to do anything yet, but just write it down.

Isabel Berwick
So I hesitate to dwell on the people who, you know, are harassers. But what’s the psychology of a colleague or boss who harasses women? You know, are they delusional or is it just entitlement?

Tessa West
It’s control. I think all kinds of harassment in the workplace really come down to control. It’s failure to perceive the feedback that people are giving you. So, often these individuals think they’re actually flattering people when they’re offending them, especially if they’re in power. They’re getting those kind of nervous smiles in response to harassment instead of a leave me alone kind of anger response. But a lot of it just really comes down to control. So, if you work in a workplace where some people are allowed to kind of have unchecked control over others, they’re allowed to get away with these things because they’re top performers or they’re bosses, or there’s just a strong hierarchy at work and you respect that. That’s really where these types of behaviours can thrive.

Isabel Berwick
Do people always have to leave? It seems to me that’s often the outcome.

Tessa West
I think you need to leave when the system is telling you that it’s not going to do anything to prevent or to correct or to punish the person who’s doing this. And so if you’re getting pushback at every level, if you’re getting eye rolls, if people are telling you just keep your mouth shut to get ahead, you need to just put up with this stuff. That’s when you need to leave.

Isabel Berwick
Are there any situations where it’s worth tackling the abuser direct?

Tessa West
Yes. So, I love this idea with just communication in general. I do a lot of work on how we tend to misperceive people’s intent all the time. We make assumptions of what they mean. The best way to really read someone’s intention is to ask, is to have a direct conversation about it. And so I think if you are gonna directly confront what you don’t want to do is lead with how you feel. I feel like you’re bullying me, I feel like you were sexually harassing me, at least not at first. You want to lead with the behaviour. You did this thing and I just want to know what you meant by that because I perceived that you meant x. (Tessa laughs) I thought you were hitting on me or I thought you were being a little bit harsh in that feedback but when you did that behaviour, what was the intent behind it? And I think asking that question, especially for those kind of ambiguous behaviours, can really kind of break the cycle very early and get the person to perspective take like, oh, I didn’t mean that. It also reduces the threat. And so if the person’s holding power over you, they’re less likely to kind of freak out or yell at you or tell you to suck it up.

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Isabel Berwick
Media investigations and social media movements like #MeToo are flushing out ugly cases of harassment and abuse. But hopefully this media scrutiny is leading to a sea change in culture. You know, abusers will become much more wary of being exposed. In the media, we’ve mainly cover big names and clear-cut cases of abuse, which makes sense because founders or CEOs are often immune. They’re so powerful that they may control the HR function and they set the corporate culture. But what about the massive low-level abuse that goes on further down in the corporate hierarchy? And what about more borderline behaviour? I always think that an independent, accountable HR department is vital here, but as we heard from Madison, support for staff is often lacking. And let’s not forget there’s also a role for all of us as individuals to look out for ourselves and each other. Trust your instincts, call out, make a voice note about anything that even just seems a bit off and support your colleagues.

As we’ve been recording this episode, we’ve had encouraging news that the UK parliamentary watchdog, one that scrutinises the financial sector, has just announced a review of sexism in the City of London. It’ll take a long time but the committee will investigate what role government and regulators should play. So if you’re a woman who’s worked in the financial services industry, the Treasury select committee wants to hear from you. We’ll put a link in the show notes. And finally, we don’t normally do this, but I wanted to finish the podcast by going back to Madison to remind us that sexual harassment ruins lives.

Madison Marriage
A kind of sad lesson I’ve learned over the last couple of years is it just remarkable to what extent an incident that may have occurred three decades ago is still extremely difficult and traumatic for people despite the big gulf of time that might have gone by. You know, a lot of people would assume that if it happened 30, 40 years ago, you’ll be fine about it by now. But it’s not the case. The more kind of tangible impact it’s had on them is on their personal relationships and how they interact with men in the workplace and in their private lives and effectively that has been radically altered for a lot of the women we spoke to. And that is just, you know, horribly unjust.

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Isabel Berwick
Thanks to Madison Marriage there and also to Helen Thomas and Tessa West for this episode. Do check out the FT’s new video about the Odey investigation, which will be published on Thursday, and we’ll put a link in the show notes. If you’ve found this episode of value, we’d really appreciate it if you left us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And if there are any other topics you’d like us to look into, please do get in touch with us. I’m isabel.berwick@ft.com, or you can find me on LinkedIn. If you’re an FT subscriber, please sign up for the Working It newsletter. I bring you the best workplace and management stories from across the FT and our office therapy advice column. Sign up at FT.com/newsletters. This episode of Working It was produced by Laurence Knight. The executive producer is Manuela Saragosa with mix from Simon Penayi. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of audio. Thanks for listening.