Sharing best practices can help other companies develop their own regulations.
With sexual harassment becoming a regular topic in the news these days, Facebook sought to publicly share its policies on the matter.
Chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and vice president of people Lori Goler shared the six basic principles behind the company’s policies on harassment in a Newsroom post: Develop training to set the standard for respectful behavior in the workplace and establish expectations. Like most companies these days, Facebook issued mandatory harassment training, but the social network also crafted its own unconscious bias training, which is available publicly here. Treat all claims and employees who submit those claims “with seriousness, urgency and respect.” Sandberg and Goler said human-resources business partners are available to all employees, and not just to senior leadership. Create an investigation process that protects employees from stigma or retaliation. The company’s investigations team is comprised of experienced HR professionals and lawyers with training in cases of sexual harassment and assault. Follow a consistent process in every case that is fair to both sides of the complaint. Take “swift and decisive action” when it is determined that wrongdoing has occurred. Facebook has a zero-tolerance policy, meaning those who are found guilty are fired. Sandberg and Goler wrote, “Unfortunately, in some cases, investigations are inconclusive and come down to one person’s word against another’s. When we don’t feel that we can make a termination decision, we take other actions designed to help everyone feel safe, including changing people’s roles and reporting.” Make it clear that all employees are responsible for keeping the workplace safe, and anyone who is silent or looks the other way is complicit.
Sandberg and Goler wrote: “Many people have asked if we’d be willing to share our policies and training guidelines, so today we are making them available publicly—not because we think we have all the answers, but because we believe that the more companies are open about their policies, the more we can all learn from one another. These are complicated issues, and while we don’t believe any company’s enforcement or policies are perfect, we think that sharing best practices can help us all improve, especially smaller companies that may not have the resources to develop their own policies.”
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David Cohen
David Cohen is editor of Adweek’s Social Pro Daily.
