One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Let’s talk about the Regression of Respect for Women in the Workplace.

First, let me just check, it is 2026, isn’t it?

With recent news articles it feels as though we could rewind time to at least a hundred years ago. I’m seeing an increase of misogyny, sexual harassment and assault cases towards women in the news and shockingly some of these cases have happened at work. Going to work should be a rite of passage for all to experience safely. Unfortunately, TUC Parliamentary Data highlight that 40% of women experience some form of unwanted sexualised behaviour at work, compared to roughly 18% of men. The responsibility of the safety of the work environment falls to everyone, to check their colleagues’ behaviours but most importantly to have control over their own.

Polls have shown that 3 in 5 women say they have experienced harassment at work, rising to almost 2 in 3 women ages 25-34. Those who didn’t report these behaviours believed that they wouldn’t be taken seriously, or it would impact work environment/relationships and career prospects. As leaders we should be actively cultivating an environment of speaking out and not protecting unacceptable behaviour by accepting silence.  

We are hearing similar reports in recent discovery calls and amongst our peers in the L&D community as well. There is a steady unnerving theme emerging

• The art of the Misogyny/micro-aggression: assigning roles such as the note-taker and the tea-maker, being talked over or dismissed, being called ‘love’ or ‘little lady’, or indeed the planning of social gatherings being assigned to a woman.

• Out of office free for all: Behaviours standards slipping out of the office with co-workers, what defines the appropriate behaviour amongst colleagues, the individual, location or what they’re wearing?

• Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault: There has been an unprecedented incline of sexual assault and harassment cases, demonstrated within the media, with links to the workplace.

  
  

It is a shock to see an increase in this behaviour and what feels like a decline for respect for women. – But why is this happening? And what can we do in the workplace to prevent this?

We hear that quite often micro-aggressions are quickly dismissed because one example doesn’t feel like ‘enough’ to mention, because that’s just the way someone is, or it was in disguise as banter. Individuals will claim, “well she laughed too, so it can’t have been that bad”. However, the response of the individual doesn’t necessarily imply complicity, in fact laughing off uncomfortable behaviour is a very common response, it doesn’t escalate the situation and depending on the rank/role of an individual it can sometimes feel the safest for their job as well as themselves.

Unfortunately, the physical location of a colleague interaction can determine how relaxed one feels to talk and behave a little more freely than they would at work. Which is why quite often HR are having to address inappropriate behaviour and language in the new year post festive socials.

Where does the workplace responsibility start for people’s behaviours?

At the very beginning it is the workplace and managers responsibility to set a standard of acceptable behaviours upon recruitment. You are saying what is acceptable and what is not tolerated, including a set outline as to what the repercussions may be for these.

This doesn’t mean once a standard has been shared the buck stops there. As of October 2024, the Workplace protection Act was updated to include; ‘employers can be held responsible for sexual harassment by their team members at work. The only exception is if the employer can prove they took "all reasonable steps" to stop it from happening in the first place.’ If an employment tribunal finds that an employer dropped the ball and didn't take those reasonable steps, they can boost compensation pay-outs by up to 25%.

To further the responsibility to the organisation, UK legislation has recently had an update in October 2026, the employer’s responsibility is to take all reasonable steps to prevent incidents from occurring in the first place, focusing on preventative training rather than reactive, and to hold a zero-tolerance policy on unacceptable behaviours. Not simply to remove the individual from one department and move them to another, or to have a written policy but instead to have regular training surrounding the measures as well as calling out people on poor choice of language and approach. These steps should apply to the whole organisation and not simply to culprits or those involved in reported incidents. To also consider all reasonable steps for those working in person and those who are working with one another virtually. To one person a comment may be a joke but to another it could be permission to behave poorly.

What can managers do to prevent sexual harassment?

Reinforce Active Bystander – build up bystander confidence within the workplace, this doesn’t just need to report psychical behaviours, but unsettling comments and conversations. Jokes that may feel a beyond the line.

Revisit Behaviour Standards Regularly – whether that be a combination of in-house reminders to external training sessions, this must be engaging and memorable for it to last with individuals. – With actual by-ins from the SLT and managers, this is not a ground level issue, it’s for all to engage in. For managers to discuss what these behaviour standards look like for them, opening the conversation can help to understand and clarify why we need them.

Share outcomes of past cases of inappropriate behaviour – ensure that repercussions are known, so that bystanders and victims have confidence in the process and ability to report said behaviours. Not sharing these can protect the perpetrator more so than the victims. Note -details such as name and incidence do not need to be shared.

Share a clear procedural process of reporting behaviours – manage expectations of timelines of results, share these with the reporters as well as investigators so that both parties know when results are due and the seriousness of the procedure.

Cultivate a psychologically safe environment – invest in your people and your workplace culture. A psychologically safe environment allows people to call up behaviours before they escalate, it gives everyone the safety to question and explore a better approach. As well as encourage a space to rectify issues.

Policy is just one step:

Policy is a document; workplace culture is the practice. Most organisations have policies which demonstrate a lack of tolerance for poor behaviours. However, quite often those detailed documents and statements do not see the light of day. You can have them accessible on a shared drive, have them in every employee handbook and even email all staff with policy details. But those wordy documents that you have invested a lot of time and energy into are not being read and especially not by the individuals who really need to. They could be skimmed or even opened, but read, understood and absorbed is very unlikely.

All too often in our training and discovery calls the senior leadership team or HR director tells us that the policies are well known and accessible, they are regularly shared and discussed. But in reality? When it comes to talking with the staff in the sessions, very few can tell us the policy location, never mind what it says. This doesn’t mean one or the other are lying, it just means that under the pressures of daily work and home life people just don’t have time to read something they feel isn’t relevant in that precise moment. It falls to the back of the pile and gets forgotten about.

Now I’m sorry to all who have ever been a part of policy making and writing. This is a hard thing to read. But by no means am I saying it is a wasted effort, more so that it needs to be built on and made an example of. A new policy is something to be proud of and the document is just the start, not the end. It isn’t considered active intervention effort if employees should know where to locate the policy. Active prevention is conscious, its deliberate and it is lasting.

Some of the challenge with implementing policy is the ‘adoption’ of the standards. Typically, organisations take the approach of ‘I say and you do’. However, the successful organisations work with and consult their staff, by asking them to contribute thoughts and ideas ahead of solidifying the policy. This creates a sense of ownership and collaboration from all, this way they have a deeper level of understanding of the origins of new policy and truly believe and care about it, because they were a part of the decision.

Addressing the elephant in the room:

Quite often in house training may not have the right resources to work and can often be seen as less credible by employees, which can lead to lower attendance or buy-in from participants. Equally, when someone the team are familiar with leads the training, this can undermine the process entirely; they could be someone who make jokes about the specific training area, are guilty of the behaviour themselves or are not portraying confidence in the delivery which can be presumed to be a lack of support in the topic itself. Although any training is better than none, with such serious areas it is worth questioning the perception and the delivery and how it may land.

Equally we find that when SLT and managers are absent from the training rooms, we are not the only ones to see this and feel this. Engagement drops when individuals highlight or ask whether SLT’s and managers are receiving the same training. Enthusiasm can fly out the window with any hope of change when the team believe that this is a ground level ‘dressing down’ rather than an implementation of change. All individuals responsible for people in the workplace, SLT, Managers and leaders are the standard bearers, they must be on board with the change and committed to leading by example. When they don’t it undermines policy and change, staff are more likely to mirror the behaviour of their seniors than to exhibit behaviours written in policy.

Having real investment, financially, with time and with an organisational wide approach demonstrates the seriousness of the topic. Shows a zero tolerance on sexualised behaviour and misogyny in the workplace and truly lands with participants to know that their behaviours is something worth investing in. Not just their practical work outputs. Can protecting one productive person really outweigh the cost of losing 10 productive individuals?

So, what can organisations, managers and leadership do to address the regression of respect for women in the workplace?

There is no recovering someone’s misogynist experience, sexual assault or harassment, you cannot wipe that slate clean, but there are many ways to prevent this being anyone’s future lived experience. 

To find out more about the training we offer, explore our bullying and harassment training or contact us for a free discovery call.