Some Reasons Why Workplace Harassment Persists Despite Policies

Most organizations have formal systems in place to stop sexual harassment, including policies, reporting procedures and codes of conduct.

Yet harassment, bullying and other harmful behaviour often persists for years inside workplaces. According to Statistics Canada, nearly half of women and 31 per cent of men report experiencing sexual harassment at some point during their working lives.

Silence plays a central role in perpetuating these abuses. When concerns go unreported, complaints unaddressed or experiences minimized, harmful behaviour continues without consequence.

Over time, this can protect high-performing employees who engage in misconduct while pushing out those who are unwilling to tolerate it. The organization loses trust and talent, and its reputation suffers.

In many workplaces, employees are aware of what’s happening, but see speaking up as risky, often due to fear of suffering professional or social consequences.

Our recent research study, led by organizational behaviour professor Angela Workman-Stark, unpacks these processes. We focus on signals of silence — everyday cues that “hush” the problem of sexual harassment.

How silence is reinforced at work

Signals of silence are messages about what is expected, permissible or futile in the organization. They can be communicated by anyone: perpetrators, coworkers, complaint recipients, supervisors and others in positions of power. These silence signals work together to protect harassment in plain sight.

Our research looked at how this happens through three behaviours:

1. Staying silent: Employees choose not to intervene, report or acknowledge harassment when they know it’s happening. This goes beyond individual victims withholding complaints. It’s also about managers not confronting harassers and witnesses not speaking up.
2. Silencing others: Colleagues discourage complaints about harassment. This often shows up in well-meaning caution to victims: “You’ll hurt your career,” “it’s better to let it go,” or “just forget about it.” In some cases, pressure comes directly from the perpetrator.
3. Not listening: When concerns are raised, they are minimized or dismissed. Harassing conduct may be reframed as misunderstandings or overreactions, and conversations are redirected. Complaints may be buried.

The problem with these signals of silence: they fuel further sexual harassment.

Why existing approaches fall short

Policies and reporting systems matter, but they aren’t enough. Organizations have relied on these methods for years to solve the problem of sexual harassment, with little effect.

Encouraging individuals to speak up has limits in environments where doing so carries risk. When silence is reinforced by peers, supervisors and informal norms, single voices cannot compete.

Through surveys of more than 3,700 people across five nations, we examined how silence operates in organizations and what interrupts it.

We found that when supervisors demonstrate ethical leadership in visible, everyday ways, signals of silence are less destructive.

Leaders that break the cycle

Our findings demonstrate that supervisors can lessen the adverse effects of silence on sexual harassment. They do this by transmitting four kinds of countersignals:

1. Practise fairness without favouritism.

Consistent, transparent decision-making helps create conditions where people are more willing to speak up. Selective accountability does the opposite, undermining speak-up culture. Effective leaders apply consequences regardless of rank or results. They recognize ethical behaviour as visibly as performance.

2. Demonstrate integrity and trustworthiness.

Leaders who keep promises, address difficult issues directly and act in line with stated values show that ethical standards are real rather than symbolic. Credibility is built through consistent actions over time, not statements alone.

3. Be explicit about expectations.

When expectations are unclear, employees rely on informal cues, which often favour silence. Leaders need to clearly define what behaviour is and isn’t acceptable. How results are achieved matters as much as the results themselves.

4. Take concerns seriously.

Leaders should give their full attention when someone raises a concern and avoid minimizing or reframing it. They should also follow up so the person knows they were heard and taken seriously. These actions send powerful messages that reach beyond the individual conversation.

Changing workplace norms

Middle managers and team leaders hold more power here than they realize. Front-line ethical supervisors can stop silence from feeding into sexual harassment — even in organizations rife with bad behaviour.

Every time a leader listens, acts and holds someone accountable, they send a message that travels farther than they realize.

Workplace culture changes through small, consistent, visible actions rather than paper policies. Over time, those actions shape expectations, and expectations become norms.

A norm of speaking up, once established, is hard to silence.