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Look at the overspecific promises going forward! - We will make arbitration optional for individual sexual harassment and sexual assault claims Ordinary haras

Look at the overspecific promises going forward! - We will make arbitration optional for individual sexual harassment and sexual assault claims Ordinary harassment and assault is still covered by forced arbitration, as is systemic sexual harassment. Good to know. - We will update and expand our mandatory sexual harassment training Everyone knows already that mandatory XY training serves to deflect liability from the company. If the previous instance wasn't good enough for its purpose, the new one will certainly be. Why not just follow policy in the employee handbook? They usually have a section on harassment and appropiate conduct, and form part of the employment contract.

jey 8y ago
Just putting it in the employee handbook is more of a liability deflecting move than actively training people and explicitly creating common knowledge.
snowwrestler 8y ago
Sexual harassment prevention training is an area where HR and employee incentives are well-aligned today, because the risk of a sexual harassment incident has a large reputational component. Gone are the days when a company just needed a box to tell a court that they checked. The public doesn't care about those boxes. The only way to manage the reputational risk of sexual harassment is to really try to prevent incidents. Good training can do that. Good training does not just tell you what you cannot do, it explores hypotheticals and addresses headline topics that people are thinking about. It is educational not just proscriptive.
- grandmczeb 8y ago
  Is there any research on the effect of training on sexual assault in the workplace?
  - HarryHirsch 8y ago
    Many universities offer scientific ethics training for incoming research students. (The NSF actually demands it for projects they sponsor.) The purpose isn't to make them walk the narrow path of goodness, it's to enable them to spot temptation when it comes, as it inevitably will. With sexual harassment the line is much sharper drawn. If someone hasn't learned how to behave civilly and not to exploit a power differential in their early 20s, no amount of training is going to help.
    - grandmczeb 8y ago
      > no amount of training is going to help. That might be true, but what's your evidence? I'm not trying to argue one way or another, I'd legitimately like to know if there's research on the effectiveness of sexual assault training in the workplace.
      - HarryHirsch 8y ago
        Still anecdotal, but a few months ago this account of a woman writing for the NY Times and her Tinder date made the rounds: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/style/modern-love-he-asked-permission-to-touch-but-not-to-ghost.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/style/modern-love-he-aske... It gives you reason to be very pessimistic about consent training and society.
        grandmczeb 8y ago
        I'm confused as to how that article is relevant.
  - wvenable 8y ago
    I think it probably removes plausible deniability by the perpetrator. If someone did X and X is explicitly in the sexual harassment training then they don't much of a leg to stand on that way.
hkon 8y ago
What is mandatory sexual harassment training? If you're not a sexual harassor, it must be frustrating having to attend such an event.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  All men are sexual harassers by default. It's in our nature. Apparently.
- always_good 8y ago
  Reminds me of the ethics class they started at the University of Texas in the business school because one kid lied on his resume and "made a fool of the university" with his ridiculous bullshitting during the senior-year interviewing process. It was a comical waste of time, and the whole time you're there wondering how it could possibly change someone who already had no scruples. You're left bitter that you had to participate in a function that had no purpose beyond making some decision-maker feel like they were moving the needle on some issue.
compiler-guy 8y ago
"Everyone knows already that mandatory XY training serves to deflect liability from the company." That is the way things are today (mostly), but it doesn't follow that this one must necessarily be so. It might end up that way--time will tell--but the company is actually trying to avoid legal-checkbox training and to get something that actually makes a difference.
tytso 8y ago
I actually think the specific promises are a good thing. They are measurable, concrete actions that are time bound --- "By such and such a date, we will have done thus and so." Like concrete OKR's, you can tell whether or not they will have done what they said they are going to do. You can also make vague statements such as "there is no place for harassment at $COMPANY"; those statements were made earlier, and they were made today. But concrete steps like "making arbitration optional, instead of mandatory" is one of the things that engineers who participated in the Walkout had demanded. So it's certainly something substantive. Now, there were some specific requests from the employees that were not honored, such as treating Temps and Contractors the same as Employees; legally that really can't be done except by hiring the Temps and Contractors and making them employees. I personally would invite other companies, such as (for example) Facebook and Apple to lead by hiring all of their cafeteria workers and stop using contracted labor. Maybe Google will lead by example, even if it impacts expenses, and therefore earnings, and therefore the Stock Price. But it's certainly within the power of other companies, like Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, etc. to also lead by example..... Wait, what? Is that Crickets that I'm hearing? :-)

jey 8y ago

Just putting it in the employee handbook is more of a liability deflecting move than actively training people and explicitly creating common knowledge.

snowwrestler 8y ago

Sexual harassment prevention training is an area where HR and employee incentives are well-aligned today, because the risk of a sexual harassment incident has a large reputational component. Gone are the days when a company just needed a box to tell a court that they checked. The public doesn't care about those boxes. The only way to manage the reputational risk of sexual harassment is to really try to prevent incidents. Good training can do that. Good training does not just tell you what you cannot do, it explores hypotheticals and addresses headline topics that people are thinking about. It is educational not just proscriptive.

grandmczeb 8y ago
Is there any research on the effect of training on sexual assault in the workplace?
- HarryHirsch 8y ago
  Many universities offer scientific ethics training for incoming research students. (The NSF actually demands it for projects they sponsor.) The purpose isn't to make them walk the narrow path of goodness, it's to enable them to spot temptation when it comes, as it inevitably will. With sexual harassment the line is much sharper drawn. If someone hasn't learned how to behave civilly and not to exploit a power differential in their early 20s, no amount of training is going to help.
  - grandmczeb 8y ago
    > no amount of training is going to help. That might be true, but what's your evidence? I'm not trying to argue one way or another, I'd legitimately like to know if there's research on the effectiveness of sexual assault training in the workplace.
    - HarryHirsch 8y ago
      Still anecdotal, but a few months ago this account of a woman writing for the NY Times and her Tinder date made the rounds: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/style/modern-love-he-asked-permission-to-touch-but-not-to-ghost.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/style/modern-love-he-aske... It gives you reason to be very pessimistic about consent training and society.
      - grandmczeb 8y ago
        I'm confused as to how that article is relevant.
- wvenable 8y ago
  I think it probably removes plausible deniability by the perpetrator. If someone did X and X is explicitly in the sexual harassment training then they don't much of a leg to stand on that way.

hkon 8y ago

What is mandatory sexual harassment training? If you're not a sexual harassor, it must be frustrating having to attend such an event.

IshKebab 8y ago
All men are sexual harassers by default. It's in our nature. Apparently.
always_good 8y ago
Reminds me of the ethics class they started at the University of Texas in the business school because one kid lied on his resume and "made a fool of the university" with his ridiculous bullshitting during the senior-year interviewing process. It was a comical waste of time, and the whole time you're there wondering how it could possibly change someone who already had no scruples. You're left bitter that you had to participate in a function that had no purpose beyond making some decision-maker feel like they were moving the needle on some issue.

compiler-guy 8y ago

"Everyone knows already that mandatory XY training serves to deflect liability from the company." That is the way things are today (mostly), but it doesn't follow that this one must necessarily be so. It might end up that way--time will tell--but the company is actually trying to avoid legal-checkbox training and to get something that actually makes a difference.

tytso 8y ago

I actually think the specific promises are a good thing. They are measurable, concrete actions that are time bound --- "By such and such a date, we will have done thus and so." Like concrete OKR's, you can tell whether or not they will have done what they said they are going to do. You can also make vague statements such as "there is no place for harassment at $COMPANY"; those statements were made earlier, and they were made today. But concrete steps like "making arbitration optional, instead of mandatory" is one of the things that engineers who participated in the Walkout had demanded. So it's certainly something substantive. Now, there were some specific requests from the employees that were not honored, such as treating Temps and Contractors the same as Employees; legally that really can't be done except by hiring the Temps and Contractors and making them employees. I personally would invite other companies, such as (for example) Facebook and Apple to lead by hiring all of their cafeteria workers and stop using contracted labor. Maybe Google will lead by example, even if it impacts expenses, and therefore earnings, and therefore the Stock Price. But it's certainly within the power of other companies, like Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, etc. to also lead by example..... Wait, what? Is that Crickets that I'm hearing? :-)