The Striking Parallels Between Healthcare and Advertising’s Sexual Harassment Problem
It’s a sad fact that, despite the progress in highlighting the need for zero tolerance of sexual harassment, reducing the harassment of women and girls in particular, this insidious behaviour is still present in almost every industry and work setting.
As the current Chair of the timeTo Steering Committee - our industry’s initiative to end sexual harassment - and someone who began her working life in the NHS as a student nurse more than four decades ago, I was both concerned and disheartened to read the shocking figures contained in the recent report from The Royal College of Surgeons hitting the headlines this week.
The report revealed 63% of women working in healthcare had been the target of sexual harassment from colleagues, and 90% of women and 81% of men had witnessed some form of sexual misconduct. One key takeaway from the report was: “Women say they fear reporting incidents will damage their careers and they lack confidence the NHS will take action.”
These findings are not only alarming, particularly for those working in the enormously challenging circumstances currently facing the caring professions, they also reflect the findings from timeTo's research in our own industry, echoing the stigma and damage that sexual harassment creates in the workplace. The parallels are striking. Fear of career repercussions and a lack of confidence in leadership action serve to create and perpetuate a culture of silence. This years All In Census data from the Advertising Association revealed that 50% of people still did not feel confident reporting incidents of sexual harassment, whilst 36% of people were concerned about the impact reporting it would have on their career.
The timeTo founders - the Advertising Association, NABS and WACL - and our steering committee have worked tirelessly to drive businesses to adopt the timeTo code of conduct. The code helps organisations to educate their teams and foster behaviour change by using the many tools and the timeTo training workshops we provide, supplemented by the provision of individual support and advice to those that need it by NABS.
We know that it works. With tremendous support from many businesses in the industry, we have seen tangible progress and behaviour change over the last five years. According to the latest All In Census, people experiencing sexual harassment has declined. In 2021's census, 3% of women and 2% of men said they had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. In 2023's census, 1% of men and women said they had experienced it. This is in stark contrast to the findings of our first piece of qualitative research in 2018, which revealed that 44% of people working in our industry had either experienced or witnessed sexual harassment during their careers.
Commitment from senior leadership is critical to driving this important cultural and behaviour change. Employers have a duty of care to ensure that their staff know how to, are confident about, and feel safe reporting any sexual harassment they have experienced or witnessed, and that appropriate investigative action is taken. This only happens in reality if senior leadership commits to this, prioritises it, and makes it happen.
The need for senior leadership in the NHS to address the complex power dynamics that exist in healthcare is paramount. The hierarchies I experienced in the NHS 40 years ago as both a student and a qualified nurse are still alive and well today. We know from our own data that junior level people more frequently experience sexual harassment from a person who is senior to them than from another in their peer group. There is a power play that comes into the mix, making this behaviour even more insidious.
Whilst we have made significant progress in our own industry, we still have a long way to go. There are many, many companies in our business who have not yet signed up to endorse the timeTo Code of Conduct, nor booked the training course for their teams (you know who you are!) but we are confident from our experience over the last five years that the strategies we have used can be adapted for any work setting, including the NHS.
It's impossible to ignore the growing pressures on the NHS and its thousands of employees, inundated with patients, hobbled by limited resources, underfunded, overworked and in need of reform, but the fundamental principles of awareness, education and accountability leading to behaviour change when it comes to stamping out sexual harassment are universally applicable. By empowering healthcare professionals to speak out and promoting a culture of zero tolerance for harassment, the NHS can begin to affect meaningful change in the same way our industry has done.
Our most highly engaged timeTo endorsers have been the ones leading this change, prioritising this issue, ensuring their staff are educated on not only what constitutes as sexual harassment but how to report it, with their actions frequently leading to a more open and positive workplace culture. Healthcare leadership needs to take the same proactive stance, setting a clear example for their teams and ensuring policies - which I know already exist - are enforced consistently.
I’m not saying this is easy. We have faced challenges in our mission to eradicate sexual harassment, and I believe the NHS will face similar hurdles. People fear ‘lifting the rock’ on their own businesses, afraid of what they might find. Organisations resist change, wary of participating in such education and training in case it inadvertently signals that the business already has a problem with sexual harassment that needs dealing with. And with a desire to maintain a positive public image, the issue is brushed aside. This is ultimately more damaging, leaving people vulnerable, exposed, fearful, unhappy, and unable to effect change. In those circumstances many take the decision to leave their role rather than continue to live with something unacceptable and unwanted that they can't change. Losing valuable and experienced staff is something the NHS can ill afford right now.
So come on, Steve Barclay. Take a look at what the advertising industry has achieved in our journey towards zero tolerance of sexual harassment in the workplace and help your colleagues in the NHS to make the change the healthcare sector definitely needs to see.
