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Giving Compass' Take:
• Experts at the Urban Institute examine the Purple Campaign’s certification program and policy framework for addressing harassment in the changing workplace.
• What can organizations take away from the Purple Campaign's framework to address harassment in the workplace during COVID-19?
• Read more about sexual harassment in the workplace.
The problem of workplace harassment spans all industries and affects employees at all levels, and the proliferation of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic has created new opportunities and challenges for addressing harassment in the workplace. The Purple Campaign, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending workplace harassment, developed a first-of-its-kind corporate certification program specifically focused on addressing workplace harassment with the goal of recognizing employers taking exemplary steps and implementing best practices in the field across the four parts of the certification program’s framework: Reduce, Respond, Rethink, and Rebuild. This report highlights what we know from research and practice for each part of the framework and identifies emerging trends in ameliorating workplace harassment drawn from background research, a pilot phase survey, and conversations with corporate leaders and policy experts.
Reduce involves promoting transparency and providing effective training to prevent workplace harassment through shared norms and behaviors as well as forthright leadership and plain talk about harassment policies, procedures, and complaints received. Respond involves implementing effective policies and practices around reporting options for employees and establishing fair and responsive investigation procedures and corrective actions. Rethink involves the intersectionality of how people experience harassment and ways companies can create greater diversity, equity, and inclusion. Rebuild involves the Purple Campaign’s corporate certification program, which represents an effort to establish a new set of norms and actions within the business community to help end harassment in the workplace.