Summer Interns and Sexual Harassment

For the Talent Acquisition professionals who manage your company’s college recruiting program, you recognize summer as the time when your offices are buzzing with ambitious minds and fearless explorers. The up and coming leaders arrive in waves, the result of your creative and busy fall recruiting efforts. Your team has meticulously planned their arrival, orientation, manager placements, and summer activities. You’re hopeful and thankful that this summer will be one of the best ever. So imagine receiving a call from an HR peer in one of your regional offices advising you of an issue and asking that you drive to the site immediately.

Here’s the scenario; three young men have just finished paying for their lunch in the company cafeteria. Their hands are full with their lunch trays as they make their way to find a table. As they move past the cashier a young lady approaches them, places her breasts on one of the trays, and says “ would you like these with your lunch?” A second or two after the shock all three drop their trays and run to the HR office. They advise the site HR Manager of what happened and ask for help. All of them are extremely concerned that what occurred might be viewed in some way as a solicited act or even that they had been the aggressors. They insist on staying in the HR office until the issue is resolved.  The College Recruiting Program Manager arrives, meets with the on-site HR manager, and then speaks with each of the young men. It’s apparent that they are concerned for a number of reasons. In addition to the perceptions of an unsolicited sexual advance, the young men are white and the young lady is black. They are extremely concerned that race will play a part in how this issue will be handled. The HR team finalizes their discussions with the young men and allow them to return to their departments. 

In the interim, the young lady is asked to come to the HR office. She is placed in a conference room awaiting a discussion with the College Program Manager and HR Manager. She is provided an opportunity to share her perspective on the incident. She willingly recounts the entire situation and found it quite amusing. She expressed that she saw it as harmless fun and didn’t understand why anyone would be concerned. As a side note, within the short time of her participation in the summer program, a number of people had noticed how flirtatious she had been with a number of young men.

As the discussion continued it was obvious that this young lady simply did not understand the inappropriateness of her actions. Unwanted sexual advances warrant immediate action and it was clear that she needed to be dismissed from the program. The HR team took the appropriate steps, terminated her employment, and escorted her from the building. The following day a secondary discussion was scheduled with the young men to assure them that the issue had been resolved. 

A summer program that includes 200+ interns can take on a life of its own. The days that followed this event prompted additional action from the College Program team. The young men involved began being mocked and ridiculed by other male interns for not taking advantage of the young lady’s advances. It seemed as though a significant number of young adults did not understand how serious the situation was. In an effort to address the entirety of the issue the college team partnered with members of the HR Business Partner community to provide additional awareness and training to the entire population of interns. Further, in advance of next year’s recruiting efforts, the team began preparing talking points regarding expected behavior and code of conduct.

Sexual harassment is wrong. Period. Our current environment and the platform that has now amplified the voices of countless victims sheds new light on the failures of many. Specific to this intern story I ask the following:

·        What expectations have been set for your college intern program participants?

·        How are company values and culture shared with prospective interns?

·        Have new employee mandatory trainings been offered to summer interns in full, or scaled to what you believe are most important?

·        Are your HR Business Partners involved in your summer program?

·        Do interns know who to go to if an incident occurs?

·        Are hiring managers prepared to manage issues with summer interns?

·        Is your college team prepared to manage incidents when they occur?

Employees of any category deserve to work in an environment free from discrimination and harassment. Employees who violate company policy should be dealt with swiftly and decisively, in accordance with established company policy. All employees should be aware of the resources available to them to report issues. No one should be concerned about retaliation or ridicule for reporting incidents. 

Is your company fully prepared to address sexual harassment? In light of the current environment has your company participated in open discussions to address questions or concerns? If not, please know that there are a wealth of resources available. I highly recommend joining the TLNT organization January 29, 2018 in New York City for the Workplace Harassment Summit. Industry experts will offer guidance on how to address this issue head on. Let’s all work together to end #metoo.