Sexual Harassment Prevention Training and Its Measurable Effect on Reporting Behaviour

Abstract

Sexual harassment is an important workplace issue that may impact employees' safety, mental state, satisfaction, productivity, and confidence in the systems within an organization. While most companies engage their employees in sexual harassment prevention training, the effectiveness of such training needs to be assessed not only by the attendance of the training sessions but also by some tangible results of training. In this research, the measurable effect of sexual harassment prevention training on the behavior of employees, including their awareness of sexual harassment, knowledge about it, reporting self-efficacy, awareness of reporting channels, and intention to report, will be assessed. A quantitative research design, which includes conducting pre-test and post-test assessments of the responses of the participants before and after engaging in a prevention training program, will be used in this research. The data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics and comparison of pre-training versus post-training results. The research is devoted to the investigation of whether training affects the understanding of employees of what is unacceptable behavior in the workplace, as well as their ability to report such incidents. Other issues include the role of having procedures for reporting such incidents, guaranteeing confidentiality, organizational support, and protection from any kind of retaliation in making employees report such events. The results of the research will be useful for organizations to understand whether their programs for employee training yield any behavioral and awareness benefits.