Introduction

Click here to view the companion Sexual Harassment: A Severe and Pervasive Problem report.

After the wave of #MeToo stories focused attention on the prevalence and pain of sexual harassment in the workplace, the question now is, #NowWhat? What do we actually do to prevent and end sexual harassment? We know that what most organizations do now doesn’t work: ignore the problem, fire the harasser, or offer training that is largely designed to protect organizations from legal liability.

We know that ultimately, what we need to do is create civil and respectful work environments free of sexual harassment and other discriminatory, bullying, and toxic behaviors, where all workers can thrive. We need to design accountability, performance management, reporting, and response systems that protect workers, not just help organizations avoid risk.

So how do we get there?

That’s what this toolkit is designed to do. Research on effective solutions is limited, and so few people actually report sexual harassment that we have a limited understanding of the scope of the problem. While there are no one-size-fits-all solutions or quick fixes, we’ve built on our analysis of the factors that drive sexual harassment in industry sectors and have surfaced a host of promising solutions that can be adapted across all sectors.

Given the structural nature of sexual harassment—rooted in power and wage-related gender disparities—we begin this toolkit by highlighting promising changes at the legal and policy level that would help establish a broad legal right to not be harassed. Beyond that, there are ways in which organizations, leaders, managers, influencers, or industry-wide groups could take a top-down approach to ensuring civil and respectful work environments free of harassment.

We then explore how workers can band together and organize from the bottom-up to put pressure on employers to change toxic work cultures. Finally, we discuss individual actions, including behavioral science-informed mindset shifts and bystander intervention training, to help workers better recognize, understand, and respond to everyday experiences with gender-based harassment.

Who is This Toolkit For?

Whether you’re an individual struggling with how to respond to sexual harassment at work, a manager responsible for creating a culture of civility, an advocate seeking ways to promote effective change, or a policy expert analyzing approaches to tailor and scale solutions, this toolkit provides promising ideas and the current state of best practices to prevent and end sexual harassment in the workplace.