Dorm Dialogue: Exploring Communication

Mia Kanapu, the host of Dorm Dialogues Exploring Communication, discusses her research on sexual harassment training. She highlights the lack of current and effective research in this area and the need for improved methods of communication and engagement. Mia defines sexual harassment and explores its different forms, emphasizing the importance of power dynamics. She explains that sexual harassment training is an educational program aimed at raising awareness and providing guidance on preventing and responding to instances of sexual harassment. Mia conducted a survey to assess comprehension, views on training, and suggestions for improvement. She also emphasizes the significance of organizational support in addressing sexual harassment. Hi guys, welcome to Dorm Dialogues Exploring Communication. I'm your host, Mia Kanapu. Now I am so excited to be bringing this to you live from my college dorm room. I am so excited as in one week from now I will be a college graduate of Sacramento State. It has been such a wonderful semester getting to research all of the things that I care about and think are important. And this is basically what I'm going to be talking about in today's episode. I have to let you all know that there is a trigger warning on today's episode as there is mentions of sexual harassment throughout the podcast. So please check the attached link to the podcast to find the available sexual harassment resources and support lines. Please don't hesitate to reach out. You are not alone. So with that in mind, I hope you guys enjoy my show. Now to get really into it, I have never done a podcast before so I have to apologize as I am figuring this all out. But I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I am enjoying getting to do a podcast because everyone is doing podcasts nowadays. And I'm very excited to be able to join them. So I have you guys probably wondering what type of research did you do, Mia? That's a really good question. I spent this last semester working as an intern for a program called WEAVE, which is When Everyone Acts, Violence Ends. The Sacramento State's hub for sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, resource center for all of Sacramento. I specifically worked with Sacramento State's confidential advocates. And getting to see that up close kind of inspired the type of research that I wanted to do this semester. So I specifically decided to do sexual harassment, but not just sexual harassment itself, but sexual harassment training. Now as I went through all kinds of researches over the last four years, I have seen a very small dedicated portion of research on sexual harassment training. And even then it's old and dated and just doesn't have any current data that could be really effective for sexual harassment training right now. Another thing that was highly not researched at all was sexual harassment training and engagement. But just the research and data studying employees and how to get them to engage more in sexual harassment training courses. And I wanted to find a way to, I guess, mitigate that. I have noticed that the prevailing notions suggest that sexual harassment training is often perceived as old and generic and boring and lacking of cultural sensitivity and just not fun at all. And then on top of that, it's also a really hard topic to speak upon and it's uncomfortable. And it can be really heavy and cause emotional labor for people who are just trying to go to their jobs and are taking this course because they're required to. So I wanted to raise the critical question of do the methods employed by companies to communicate sexual harassment training impact the overall comprehension and engagement from employees? Now I know that that's a really big question. But basically what I'm trying to say is that the effectiveness of sexual harassment training hinges on its ability to resonate with employees on a personal and organizational level. And companies can foster a culture of respect and accountability by shifting the focus from a one-size-fits-all approach to one that is inclusive, culturally sensitive, and trauma-informed. And I guess through my research, I have just taken on trying to find a way to bridge the gap between this organizational mandate and employee experiences. And ultimately, hopefully, pave the way for more effective and engaging sexual harassment training programs. So let's just jump right on in. I wanted to start off first by defining what sexual harassment is. And according to the 2020 Journal of Applied Communication Research article, Surviving Org Tolerance of Sexual Harassment and Exploration of Resilience, Vulnerability, and Harassment by authors Ford and Ivanknik, they define sexual harassment as unwelcomed sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature that can happen anywhere and to anyone. Now, an important part of sexual harassment to note is that it is often about power and domination. Now, sexual harassment in the workplace is particularly complex due to the ways that power relations intersect with gender, race, organizational hierarchy, and the desire to maintain a job and income. But there are a three-component model of sexual harassment that is proposed by Fitzgerald in measuring sexual harassment, theoreticals, and psychometric advances that outline three main forms. So first we have quid pro quo, where sexual favors are sought in exchange for career benefits, aligning with the legal definition of coercion. The second form involves unwanted sexual attention, encompassing inappropriate commentary, advances, and touching without expectation of reciprocation. The third form, termed as gender harassment, is a target on individuals based on their gender and often involving insults, inappropriate jokes, sexual displays, and gender-based hazing. Those latter two forms are completely associated with creating a hostile work environment, and sexual harassment can range from explicit demands for sexual acts as a job requirement to uncomfortable sexual remarks by peers lacking authority. So that's just a basic understanding of sexual harassment and the kind of components that make it up. And why I wanted to specifically focus on sexual harassment training is because, as I had mentioned earlier, is that there is a lack of research on training and just analyzing of the effectiveness of sexual harassment training. And I really wanted to see how can we better communicate sexual harassment training and basically receive buy-in from employees to participate, but also gain a comprehensive understanding of sexual harassment and what they can do to prevent and report. So I wanted to measure the effectiveness of the definition of sexual harassment, how well can one define sexual harassment, and the policies that their workplaces have set. But I also wanted to see how well they understood prevention and education and what to do if you see sexual harassment happening. So I just wanted to research basically what the people want. I wanted to see what other people felt when having to be asked to do sexual harassment training. For myself, I understand that it's not particularly my favorite thing to do. I understand that it's really necessary for me to pay attention, to focus. But I wanted to hear from other people and their type of reaction and their understanding of the sexual harassment training. Because education and prevention is where it all starts. Now to define a little bit on sexual harassment training is to define it as an educational program designed to raise awareness and provide guidance on recognizing, preventing, and responding to instances of sexual harassment in the workplace or educational setting. Now these trainings typically cover topics such as defining sexual harassment, understanding its various forms and impacts, identifying inappropriate behaviors, learning how to report incidences, and understanding the legal obligation and consequences associated with sexual harassment. Now that I have defined for you sexual harassment and the sexual harassment training, I wanted to give a little brief overview on my survey. So I did an anonymous 15-question survey. I used a convenience and voluntary sampling, which basically means I asked my friends, family. I asked Sac State Snapchat for those of you who know. Sacramento State has a community Snapchat that people post on. So I sent my survey there and I also put my survey on Reddit. So I kind of got a various range of answers. And as I continue to do more research, I will narrow it down a little bit on age, types of work, and things like that. But for this survey, I kind of wanted to have a broad range of people because that would give me a broad range of answers on how to better sexual harassment training. And so for my survey, I basically had a couple of main goals as I was creating the questions, doing my research, and trying to come up with, you know, just questions to ask to put on my survey. So my main goals were assessing the comprehension of sexual harassment and actions in employees, understanding what is currently being utilized by companies now in terms of sexual harassment training. I wanted to see how one views having to engage in training, like I had mentioned before. I also would, I wanted to figure out what would make an employee be more inclined to participate in training. I also wanted to see what topics that people would want to see be handled in these trainings. And I asked if they had any suggestions for sexual harassment training themselves. And I also wanted to hit on if they felt support from their organizations because organizational culture and support is a huge part of sexual harassment reporting and just basically sexual harassment culture in the workplace. We'll devolve a little bit more on later in the podcast about it, but this is a really big topic as if employees don't feel comfortable reporting in their workplace, their sexual harassment training is not to say useless, but it doesn't get used. And just like I have mentioned many times before, I just wanted to get an understanding of what employees themselves wanted in terms of what they wanted to see in their sexual harassment training and what they wanted to learn and how well they have been able to comprehend these trainings. As I had started to do this research and figure out what type of audience that my research will reach, I kind of realized that I wanted to keep this broad because of how broad sexual harassment is. But most importantly, how important sexual harassment training is. So basically, I wanted to address the lack of management that is happening in regards to sexual harassment training and their recognition of how important education training is, but most importantly, the follow-up of such education training. I wanted employees to understand why this training is important, but also to recognize that there are failures that affect them, affect employees, and I want to ask or calm researchers to study more on sexual harassment training and the way we can improve. So now as we move forward through this podcast, I wanted to let you all know that I'm going to be going back and forth between my research and my survey questions and just basically what I found in regards to my questions. So starting off, a big part of sexual harassment and witnessing sexual harassment is the type of sense-making we go through as a person to understand the situation that is happening either to us or in front of us or around us. In the article, Sense-Making, Organizational Culture, and Sexual Harassment, authors Dugarty and Smith define the theory of sense-making by Carl Weck that suggests that organizational members attempt to make sense of unexpected events through a process of action, selection, and interpretation. Now, it is important to note that sense-making is a social process, so workplace interaction shapes our experience and interpretation and meaning. An important thing to note is that our way of sense-making is by relying on shared experiences that we have had, not on the shared meaning of the situation at hand. Now, Carl Weck's theory of sense-making is a prominent framework in organizational communication studies, and it focuses on how individuals and groups make sense of and interpret the world around them, especially in ambiguous or uncertain situations like sexual harassment. And so here is a little bit of a breakdown of the key concepts. So, starting off, we have enactment, and enactment just refers to the process by which individuals create meaning through their actions and interactions with their environment. Next, we have retrospection, and that sense-making often involves looking back on past experiences to understand the present and anticipate the future. Retrospect involves reflecting on past events and experiences to make sense of current situations, which I had mentioned before that we use shared experiences instead of shared meaning. Next, we have plausibility, which Weck argues that people don't necessarily seek the correct or objectively true explanation of the event. Instead, they seek an explanation that are plausible and make sense within the context. Plausibility refers to the degree to which an explanation fits with individuals' existing beliefs, experiences, and expectations. So, a way one views things is all based off of the things that we believe in, we value, we recognize. That is a big part of sense-making. The next one is reliability, which while plausibility is important, Weck also emphasizes the need for reliability in sense-making. Reliability refers to the consistency and predictability of an explanation or interpretation over time. Next is identity construction, and this sense-making is also intertwined with individual and group sense of identity. How we make sense of the situation shapes our understanding of who we are and what role is within our given context. So, you as a group within a workplace are going to be influenced by your workplace culture, the way management treats you, the way sexual harassment training is given and abided by. All of these things affect the way you're going to view a sexual harassment situation. The next thing is social construction, and this is where Weck emphasizes the social nature of sense-making and highlighting how our interpretations are influenced by interactions with others. And sense-making is often a collaborative process with individual sharing and negotiating interpretation with one another. Like I had said before, sense-making is a social process. We do it by talking it through with others, trying to make sense of what we've seen. You know, sexual harassment, whether it's happening to us or somebody else, can be devastating to watch. Sometimes we can't comprehend that something like that can happen or is happening. So, it's important to recognize the type of sense-making that everyone does because we all process information differently. People's understanding and their different beliefs are what is going to justify their actions. Now, from, again, the article, Sense-Making, Organizational Culture, and Sexual Harassment, authors Duberty and Smith recognize that not only will the organizational policy influence sexual harassment, but the ongoing interaction between organizational members and the sense that is made for sexual harassment will likely influence the acceptance of sexual harassment in the organization. So, this suggests that the organizational policies regarding sexual harassment aren't the sole determinators of how it's perceived or tolerated. Instead, the continual interaction among members and the collective understanding of what constitutes sexual harassment also shapes the organizational stance and acceptance of such behavior. A workplace where the official policy is explicitly prohibited any form of sexual harassment. Despite this policy, if employees frequently engage in inappropriate jokes, comments, or behaviors of sexual nature without any repercussions or coercive action from management, it creates an environment where such conduct becomes normalized or accepted. In this case, the ongoing interaction among employees and the lack of intervention from leadership contributes to an atmosphere where sexual harassment is condoned despite the formal policy against it. So, basically, in my survey, I asked the participants what they would do if they saw a sexual harassment happening to one of their coworkers. And I had a couple options, and those were ranging from intervene immediately to stop the harassment, which received over one of the questions that I asked in my survey was a situation reflecting on a possible workplace scenario. Asking when witnessing a coworker being sexually harassed, what would be your initial reaction? And over 42 of my participants said that they would intervene immediately to stop the harassment. 12 said that they would approach the coworker after to offer support. 11 said that they would report the incident to HR or a supervisor. 1 said that they would ignore the situation and continue with the work. I had 66 participants for this survey, and I was thoroughly surprised to see that a lot of people had said that they would intervene immediately to stop the harassment. Most sexual harassment training videos often touch on the topic of what to do when you see someone being sexually harassed, and intervening is one of those options. And while I was surprised that people chose that, it explains a lot to how we make sense of something. For us, if we are seeing somebody experience sexual harassment, a lot of people are going to want to step in and stop sexual harassment from happening in your workplace. Moving forward to another key aspect that really needs to be reviewed, researched, and looked upon when taking in sexual harassment training into mind is what an organizational culture is like. What a workplace culture is like for that specific job that the employee is working. Now, what is an organizational culture, you ask? Well, according to the Cultural Indicator of Sexual Harassment by Keaton, Ferguson, and Rhodes, they define this as organizational culture has been defined as the social interactions among members of an organizational unit or organization as a whole. Now, organizational cultures also create an environment in which certain employee behaviors are supported or encouraged, like cultural content, like assumptions, norms, values within an organization influences members' behavioral patterns. These, in turn, reinforce an organizational's culture and underlying structures and patterns that encourage or suppress sexual harassment. Now, the culture may be changing in society as we see a lot happening recently in terms of the Me Too movement, as we've watched millions of women stand up, stand back, use their voices against sexual harassment, sexual assault, abuse, and all kinds of things. The culture is changing, but sexual harassment is still a prevalent issue, and because there's a lack of research involving sexual harassment training, there is a lot of focus on victims versus their perpetrators and results of sexual harassment. A lot of org culture is influenced by these types of researches and the definitions and interpretations and responses to sexual harassment within the workplace. Organizational response is a determining factor of a workplace culture. It's important to note that for the betterment of training, it is really important to add in clear lines of what harassment is and clear examples. We see that when an organization has a strong discussion, open communication type of workplace, employees feel more prone to want to open up and have a discussion with these organizations regarding sexual harassment. According to the article of Communication Strategies for Managing Sexual Harassment in Organizations, Understanding Messages, Options, and Their Effects by author Shireen Bingham, writes that the perpetual incongruencies, which is another obstacle contemplating the task of stopping sexual harassment, is that the intent of harassing communities is to stop sexual harassment. A harasser can deny the intent of ambiguous harassing messages, especially if the behavior becomes public within the organization. Like I had mentioned above, how important it is for organizations to have clear examples and clear definitions of what sexual harassment is because, for example, let's say a colleague might send a suggestive email or text to another co-worker making inappropriate comments that could be interpreted as harmless banter, but by some, and while clearly crossing boundaries for others. When confronted with allegations of harassment, the perpetrator could easily claim that their intentions were misconstrued or that they were simply joking, therefore muddying the waters of accountability. This lacks clarity, not only making it challenging to identify and address instances of harassment, but also provide an avenue for perpetrators to evade consequences, especially if their behavior comes to light within an organizational context. As a result, it underscores the importance of comprehensive training and policies that not only define what constitutes harassment, but also educates individuals on the nuisances of appropriate workplace behavior that fosters a culture of respect and accountability. Again, we create meaning around shared experiences. Now, communication strategies within organizational culture can significantly influence the institutionalization, commercialization, and marketability of businesses. In Robin Clare's article, The Bureaucracy, Commodification, and Privatization of Sexual Harassment through Institutional Discourse, points out several key points within the article, highlighting, one, taken for granted meanings of systems, which is societal norms deeply ingrained around gender and power dynamics that can normalize or minimize instances of sexual harassment. For example, in workplaces where traditional gender roles dictate that men are dominant and women are submissive, incidences of harassment may be dismissed as just how things are, perpetrating a culture of acceptance rather than being reprimanded. Next is strategic ambiguity. Organizations may employ strategic ambiguity in their policies or communications regarding sexual harassment, creating loopholes that allow harassment to persist unchecked. For instance, vague language in harassment policies may fail to clearly define what constitutes harassment, making it challenging for victims to identify and report instances. Third is the exclusionary discourse, which certain forms of discourse, such as victim-blaming or perpetrating stereotypes about harassment victims, can further marginalize those who experience harassment. This can lead to the commodification of harassment, where victims are treated as objects or commodities to be exploited rather than individuals deserving of respect and support. For example, when victims are blamed for their attire or behavior, it shifts the focus away from the perpetrator's actions, perpetrating a culture of reprieve. The 2020 journal article by Ford and Ivannik, Surviving Organizational Tolerance of Sexual Harassment in Exploration of Resistance, Vulnerability, and Harassment, emphasizes the challenges posed by cultures of sexual harassment for traditional management approaches, like policy implementation and standardized training. These cultures require more nuanced interventions due to their covert and entrenched nature and the specific social norms regarding sexual conduct within organizational settings. Now, in my survey, I had 66 participants. 39 of those individuals felt comfortable reporting instances of sexual harassment. 16 of those individuals expressed some level of comfort but have concerns about reporting. And 8 individuals are unsure of having not considered reporting instances of sexual harassment. And 3 individuals do not feel comfortable reporting incidents of sexual harassment. Now, this is kind of shaped around the type of organizational work that my participants were in. And I had 20 of those respondents come from the education field. 15 of them come from retail, HUD, and hospitality. And the rest occupying various occupations ranging from technology to public service. The breakdown kind of provides an overview of the survey's responses regarding comfort levels in reporting sexual harassment and the distribution across different occupation fields. So, after a very long and comprehensive understanding of sexual harassment and sexual harassment training, what I'm trying to say is that when an organization wants to receive a buy-in engagement from their employees in their sexual harassment training, these are some of the recommendations that I have for organizations. The effective prevention of sexual harassment hinges on the values upheld by the organization and the social dynamics that influence that behavior. Essentially, it proposes that to create a workplace free from harassment, organizations must integrate their sexual harassment policies into a broader cultural fabric. According to the article addressing sexual harassment in a sexually charged nation, a communication approach focusing on employees and their formal and informal relationships at work is more likely to address how the organizational culture and values support a no-harassment climate and give voice to all employees and their concerns about sexual harassment behavior in their workplace. Educating and empowering employees should be the goals of sexual harassment training. This entails fostering a culture that not only adopts anti-harassment policies, but also actively promotes and reinforces the principles and goals of these policies. In other words, simply having policies in place is insignificant. They must be deeply ingrained in the organizational culture to effectively prevent and address sexual harassment. How do we do this? Insights from my survey suggest that to enhance employee engagement in sexual harassment training, the first steps involve shifting the focus from what not to do to what proactive actions can be taken. Rather than expecting dry, generic presentations, it's essential to convey that sexual harassment impacts everyone within the organization and frame training as a collaborative discussion on fostering a safe environment. People seek to have updated statistics, diverse experiences be recognized, guidance be provided on navigating workplace environment, and inclusion of current events and law case examples, all suggestions made by participants of my survey. The second step entails illustrating sexual harassment through real organizational specific examples, considering diverse perspectives influenced by factors like gender, race, and workplace norms. It's crucial to empower employees to recognize and address harassment by providing a platform for open dialogue and co-creating a contextualized definition. One survey taker wrote in the suggestions to improve training by saying, when addressing sexual harassment, I feel it is necessary to inform everyone about harassment that people face daily, not just sexual harassment, but verbal harassment as well. There's a high want for current information within these training videos, as people need to be able to relate to what they are absorbing, as one survey taker has said. Next, providing practical communication strategies for managing and reporting harassment within the organization is vital. Enabling employees to navigate such situations through interactive scenarios fosters their ownership and understanding. I had multiple survey takers express that they wish for more explanation on who to report to if sexually harassed and how to do so anonymously. In my survey, identifying preferred methods of training showed that 17% wanted in-person workshops, 40% wanted online courses, 16% wanted interactive group discussions, and 24% wanted video presentations or tutorials. Though, according to the article he said, she said, the effectiveness and outcomes of responses to sexual harassment by Mills and Scudder, some issues may be occurring because many organizations have mandatory Title X training, but much of it is now being delivered through the Internet because face-to-face training costs are too high. Moreover, those programs rely on institutionalized reporting rather than providing target immediate, empowering, tactive responses that can curtail harassment before it escalates. Finally, the ongoing support and encouragement from organizations are crucial. This involves establishing accessible channels for reporting, seeking guidance, and addressing concerns without the fear of repercussions. Such measures reinforce the organization's dedication to effectively combating harassment, and additionally, the consistent and active involvement of supervisors and managers is vital for the success of sexual harassment training initiatives. It is notable that two of my survey participants emphasized the importance of companies following through on the policies and rules declared within training sessions. They note that when there's a lack of support or acknowledgement of these policies, employees may not take the training seriously unless enforced. Now, as we come towards the end of this podcast and my research, I wanted to just shout out some honorary suggestions that I received from participants on the survey that I thought were just so funny and hilarious and something I just wouldn't have never thought of. One of my participants proposed changing the music in the training every year, which I had not thought of but will take into consideration. The next one I think is very funny and is very on brand for Gen Z right now as there's a trend going around on TikTok about whether you would want to be left alone with a man or a bear. Basically, throughout these TikToks, we're seeing that the suggestion of being left alone with a man is ultimately worse than being left alone with a bear. One of my participants actually addressed this in her suggestion. Ultimately, when I asked what would improve sexual harassment training, they put that we either get rid of men or we put bears in the workplace so that we can choose bears over men. That truly sums up how sexual harassment still is a prevalent source of organizational dysfunction. As I conclude, let us remember that preventing sexual harassment in the workplace is not just a legal obligation but a moral imperative. It requires a collective effort from top leadership down to every individual employee. By fostering a culture of respect, accountability, and open communication, we can create workplaces where everyone feels safe, valued, and empowered to speak up against harassment. Together, let us commit to implementing the insights shared today, ensuring that our organizations not only have policies in place but also actively uphold and enforce them. Let us strive for inclusivity, understanding, and continuous improvement in our approach to sexual harassment prevention. I want to thank you all for listening to my very first podcast and to your attention and dedication to this crucial issue. I hope you guys enjoyed this podcast as much as I enjoyed making it. Alright, bye!