Employee Satisfaction with Sexual Harassment Policies: The Training Connection

Public Personnel Management

Volumn 33, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 99-119

  Reese, Laura A ^a   Lindenberg, Karen E ^b  

^a WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 1842434429     PISSN: 00910260     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/009102600403300108     Document Type: Review

References (38)

1. Riger, S. (1991). Gender dilemmas in sexual harassment policies and procedures. American Psychologist, May, 497-505; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (1999), Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (2002). It's the training stupid. Paper presented at the annual meeting, Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL.
2. Riger, S. (1991). Gender dilemmas in sexual harassment policies and procedures. American Psychologist, May, 497-505; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (1999), Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (2002). It's the training stupid. Paper presented at the annual meeting, Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL.
3. Riger, S. (1991). Gender dilemmas in sexual harassment policies and procedures. American Psychologist, May, 497-505; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (1999), Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (2002). It's the training stupid. Paper presented at the annual meeting, Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL.
4. Stringer, D.M., H. Remick, J. Salisbury, and A.B. Ginorio (1990). The power and reasons behind sexual harassment: An employer's guide to solutions. Public Personnel Management, 19 (Spring), 43-52; Remick, H., J. Salisbury, D. Stringer, and A.B. Ginorio (1990). Investigating complaints of sexual harassment. In M.A. Paludi (Ed.), Ivory power: Sexual harassment on campus (pp. 191-212). Albany: State University of New York Press; Riger, S. (1991). Gender dilemmas in sexual harassment policies and procedures. American Psychologist, May, 497-505; American Association of University Professors (1995). Sexual harassment suggested policy and procedures for handling complaints. Academe, (July/August), 62-63; Gutek, B.A. (1997). Sexual harassment policy initiatives. In W. O'Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment (pp. 185-198). Boston: Allyn and Bacon; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg, (1999). Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
5. Stringer, D.M., H. Remick, J. Salisbury, and A.B. Ginorio (1990). The power and reasons behind sexual harassment: An employer's guide to solutions. Public Personnel Management, 19 (Spring), 43-52; Remick, H., J. Salisbury, D. Stringer, and A.B. Ginorio (1990). Investigating complaints of sexual harassment. In M.A. Paludi (Ed.), Ivory power: Sexual harassment on campus (pp. 191-212). Albany: State University of New York Press; Riger, S. (1991). Gender dilemmas in sexual harassment policies and procedures. American Psychologist, May, 497-505; American Association of University Professors (1995). Sexual harassment suggested policy and procedures for handling complaints. Academe, (July/August), 62-63; Gutek, B.A. (1997). Sexual harassment policy initiatives. In W. O'Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment (pp. 185-198). Boston: Allyn and Bacon; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg, (1999). Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
6. Stringer, D.M., H. Remick, J. Salisbury, and A.B. Ginorio (1990). The power and reasons behind sexual harassment: An employer's guide to solutions. Public Personnel Management, 19 (Spring), 43-52; Remick, H., J. Salisbury, D. Stringer, and A.B. Ginorio (1990). Investigating complaints of sexual harassment. In M.A. Paludi (Ed.), Ivory power: Sexual harassment on campus (pp. 191-212). Albany: State University of New York Press; Riger, S. (1991). Gender dilemmas in sexual harassment policies and procedures. American Psychologist, May, 497-505; American Association of University Professors (1995). Sexual harassment suggested policy and procedures for handling complaints. Academe, (July/August), 62-63; Gutek, B.A. (1997). Sexual harassment policy initiatives. In W. O'Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment (pp. 185-198). Boston: Allyn and Bacon; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg, (1999). Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
7. Stringer, D.M., H. Remick, J. Salisbury, and A.B. Ginorio (1990). The power and reasons behind sexual harassment: An employer's guide to solutions. Public Personnel Management, 19 (Spring), 43-52; Remick, H., J. Salisbury, D. Stringer, and A.B. Ginorio (1990). Investigating complaints of sexual harassment. In M.A. Paludi (Ed.), Ivory power: Sexual harassment on campus (pp. 191-212). Albany: State University of New York Press; Riger, S. (1991). Gender dilemmas in sexual harassment policies and procedures. American Psychologist, May, 497-505; American Association of University Professors (1995). Sexual harassment suggested policy and procedures for handling complaints. Academe, (July/August), 62-63; Gutek, B.A. (1997). Sexual harassment policy initiatives. In W. O'Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment (pp. 185-198). Boston: Allyn and Bacon; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg, (1999). Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
8. Stringer, D.M., H. Remick, J. Salisbury, and A.B. Ginorio (1990). The power and reasons behind sexual harassment: An employer's guide to solutions. Public Personnel Management, 19 (Spring), 43-52; Remick, H., J. Salisbury, D. Stringer, and A.B. Ginorio (1990). Investigating complaints of sexual harassment. In M.A. Paludi (Ed.), Ivory power: Sexual harassment on campus (pp. 191-212). Albany: State University of New York Press; Riger, S. (1991). Gender dilemmas in sexual harassment policies and procedures. American Psychologist, May, 497-505; American Association of University Professors (1995). Sexual harassment suggested policy and procedures for handling complaints. Academe, (July/August), 62-63; Gutek, B.A. (1997). Sexual harassment policy initiatives. In W. O'Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment (pp. 185-198). Boston: Allyn and Bacon; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg, (1999). Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
9. Stringer, D.M., H. Remick, J. Salisbury, and A.B. Ginorio (1990). The power and reasons behind sexual harassment: An employer's guide to solutions. Public Personnel Management, 19 (Spring), 43-52; Remick, H., J. Salisbury, D. Stringer, and A.B. Ginorio (1990). Investigating complaints of sexual harassment. In M.A. Paludi (Ed.), Ivory power: Sexual harassment on campus (pp. 191-212). Albany: State University of New York Press; Riger, S. (1991). Gender dilemmas in sexual harassment policies and procedures. American Psychologist, May, 497-505; American Association of University Professors (1995). Sexual harassment suggested policy and procedures for handling complaints. Academe, (July/August), 62-63; Gutek, B.A. (1997). Sexual harassment policy initiatives. In W. O'Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment (pp. 185-198). Boston: Allyn and Bacon; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg, (1999). Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
10. Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (2002"). Assessing local government sexual harassment policies. The American Review of Public Administration, September.
11. Pierce, E.R., B. Rosen, and T.B. Hiller (1997). Breaking the silence: Creating user-friendly sexual harassment policies. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 10, 225-243.
12. Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (1999). Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
13. Perry, E.L., C.T. Kulik, and J.M. Schmidtke, (1998). Individual differences in the effectiveness of sexual harassment awareness training. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 28, 698-723.
14. Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (1999). Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
15. O'Hare Grundmann, E, W. O'Donohue, and S.H. Peterson (1997). The prevention of sexual harassment. In W. O'Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment (pp. 175-184). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
16. A single-state focus was chosen for several reasons. First, examination of municipal policies within one state controls for enabling legislation. Michigan has a strong tradition of municipal home rule and local governments have independence in creating and implementing personnel policies such as those related to sexual harassment. Second, a single-state focus allows for a more comprehensive examination of policies, implementation issues, training and the like across a number of local governments. Third, ensuring the cooperation of local governments, and stimulating response rates, requires working through state municipal associations. Michigan as a case study represents several ideal factors that permit generalizing survey results. While often characterized as a classic "rust belt" state, there are many areas of Michigan which remain rural and/or where the primary source of income is tied to tourist dollars and agriculture. Michigan also has a high percentage of minorities or ethnic groups concentrated in distinct geographical regions of the state. There are areas of the state that are distinctly more liberal, while others are conservative in both political and lifestyle preferences. Many blue-collar communities in Michigan experienced in-migration from the South only a generation or two ago and remain distinctly blue-collar communities, while other areas in Michigan have seen a suburban explosion of middle and upper middle class wealth. Thus, Michigan presents a microcosm that is sufficiently heterogeneous to provide a good snapshot of public sector practices in high profile policy areas such as sexual harassment.
17. While many public and private sector organizations now have sexual harassment policies that follow EEOC guidelines in their major components, previous research has indicated that policies vary along the following lines (Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg, 2002, Assessing local government sexual harassment policies. The American Review of Public Administration, September): Confidentiality protections and sanctions for breach of confidentiality; Nature and number of reporting avenues; Information provided to the complainant regarding findings and outcome of investigation; Time frame requirements for investigation and findings; Provision for external versus internal investigative bodies; Extent of supervisor evaluations of complaint processing; and, Composition of investigator teams particularly including gender. In addition, municipalities differ in training formats and intensity. Training modalities in particular could vary along a number of lines, including: Frequency and comprehensiveness (regarding who is trained) of training; Single versus mixed gender workshops; Single position (supervisors only) versus mixed position work-shops; and, Passive (movies/written materials) versus active (role play/simulations) modes of training (Gutek, B.A. (1997). Sexual harassment policy initiatives. In W. O'Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment (pp. 185-198). Boston: Allyn and Bacon).
18. While many public and private sector organizations now have sexual harassment policies that follow EEOC guidelines in their major components, previous research has indicated that policies vary along the following lines (Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg, 2002, Assessing local government sexual harassment policies. The American Review of Public Administration, September): Confidentiality protections and sanctions for breach of confidentiality; Nature and number of reporting avenues; Information provided to the complainant regarding findings and outcome of investigation; Time frame requirements for investigation and findings; Provision for external versus internal investigative bodies; Extent of supervisor evaluations of complaint processing; and, Composition of investigator teams particularly including gender. In addition, municipalities differ in training formats and intensity. Training modalities in particular could vary along a number of lines, including: Frequency and comprehensiveness (regarding who is trained) of training; Single versus mixed gender workshops; Single position (supervisors only) versus mixed position work-shops; and, Passive (movies/written materials) versus active (role play/simulations) modes of training (Gutek, B.A. (1997). Sexual harassment policy initiatives. In W. O'Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment (pp. 185-198). Boston: Allyn and Bacon).
19. Scores on the policy and training indexes were converted to standardized scores (f-scores) to assure that all responses were comparable. The cut points identified in the text were chosen because they represented visible breaks or skips in the data and hence seemed to best distinguish between cities with poor policies below the cut and those with exceptionally good policies above it. For the good policy index there was a jump from two cities to 12 cities at .89 and there were 35 cities identified as having highly codified policies; there was another large group of 54 that did not have any of the effective policy elements. For training there was a large jump from 21 cities to one city at .62 and this was chosen as the dividing line between good and bad training. This resulted in 106 cities with poor training and 85 with good training.
20. It only made sense to survey employees in cities that had relatively large numbers of employees. For example, if a city had only 20 employees it would be difficult to get a generalizable sense of the effects of their policies. While the initial preference was only to include municipalities with 100 or more employees this would have resulted in only one or two cities in some of the quadrants. By using a minimum employee size of 70, a reasonably large set of eligible cities resulted for each quadrant. The analysis was limited to cities to control for form of government but also because villages tended to have substantially fewer employees.
21. Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg. (1999). Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. The response rates for the individual cities is as follows: Light Blue City - 210 surveys distributed, 50 returned = 24 percent response rate Light Green City - 84 surveys distributed, 21 returned = 26 percent response rate Yellow City - 332 surveys distributed, 135 returned = 41 percent response rate Cream City - 118 surveys distributed, 28 returned = 24 percent response rate Pink City - 118 surveys distributed, 43 returned = 36 percent response rate Orange City - 111 surveys distributed, 44 returned = 40 percent response rate Dark Blue City - 82 surveys distributed, 13 returned = 16 percent response rate Purple City - 154 surveys distributed, 48 returned = 31 percent response rate Red City - 197 surveys distributed, 51 returned = 26 percent response rate Brown City - 107 surveys distributed, 39 returned = 36 percent response rate Orchid City - 180 surveys distributed, 33 returned = 18 percent response rate Dark Green City - 140 surveys distributed, 44 returned = 31 percent response rate Gold City - 164 surveys distributed, 46 returned = 28 percent response rate
22. Sixty-two percent of respondents are male, the modal age of respondents is 40-49 (36 percent), and almost half of respondents have been in their current place of employment for over ten years (49 percent). Ninety-two percent of respondents are Caucasian, four percent are African American, and other racial groups comprise less than one percent of the sample. The majority of respondents are line employees (55 percent), 20 percent are middle managers, 18 percent are supervisors, and 8 percent are top managers. The thirteen cities surveyed differ significantly on only a few respondent traits. Respondents from the Pink city are significantly younger and are more likely to be non-white (mirroring the population profile in the community, roughly 50 percent non-white). Respondents from the Cream cities were significantly more likely to be female and less like to be supervisors. Respondents from the Orange and Red cities were significantly more likely to be male (and older in the latter). Finally, respondents from the Orchid and Light Blue cities were significantly younger.
23. Only respondents who had used the policy or knew of others who had were asked to answer these questions.
24. Because the data are drawn from 13 different cities with different policies and procedures It is possible that satisfaction rates are better explained by city than by respondent traits. These relationships have been explored in other research (results can be provided by the authors). However, in summary form, only three cities had significantly different employee satisfaction rates; the Dark Blue and Orchid cities were significantly higher and the Light Blue city was significantly lower (Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (2002). It's the training, stupid. Paper presented at the annual meeting, Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL). Of the two cities with significantly higher satisfaction rates, one came far closer to matching model policy than the other so the differences are more likely to emanate from the process and/or the extent of training as opposed to the policy.
25. For the factor analysis, the standard SPSS default modes were employed including varimax rotation, listwise deletion of missing data, and principle components analysis. A .50 or higher loading was the criteria used for inclusion in a factor. No variable loaded on more than one factor. Factor scores were converted to for standardized scores and added to create an index score.
26. Foulis, D. and McCabe, M.P. (1997). Sexual harassment: Factors affecting attitudes and perceptions. Sex Roles (November): 773-798; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (1999). Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications; De Judicibus, M. and M.P. McCabe (2001). Blaming the target of sexual harassment: Impact of gender role, sexist attitudes, and work role. Sex Roles, 44: 401-417.
27. Foulis, D. and McCabe, M.P. (1997). Sexual harassment: Factors affecting attitudes and perceptions. Sex Roles (November): 773-798; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (1999). Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications; De Judicibus, M. and M.P. McCabe (2001). Blaming the target of sexual harassment: Impact of gender role, sexist attitudes, and work role. Sex Roles, 44: 401-417.
28. Foulis, D. and McCabe, M.P. (1997). Sexual harassment: Factors affecting attitudes and perceptions. Sex Roles (November): 773-798; Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (1999). Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications; De Judicibus, M. and M.P. McCabe (2001). Blaming the target of sexual harassment: Impact of gender role, sexist attitudes, and work role. Sex Roles, 44: 401-417.
29. 2) value.
30. 2 but that training is by far the more critical factor.
31. The two independent variables in this equation are not significantly correlated with each other.
32. Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (1999). Implementing public sector sexual harassment policies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
33. Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (2002). It's the training, stupid. Paper presented at the annual meeting, Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL.
34. Covey, S.R. (1990). Principle centered leadership. New York: Free Press; Saal, F.E. (1996). Men's misperceptions of women's interpersonal behaviors and sexual harassment. In M.S. Stockdale (Ed.), Sexual harassment in the workplace (pp. 67-84). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Zipple, K. (2003). Civil rights or workers' rights? Practices of implementation of sexual harassment policies in Germany and in the United States. In H. Gottfried and L.A. Reese (Eds.), Gender and Workplace Policy. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
35. Covey, S.R. (1990). Principle centered leadership. New York: Free Press; Saal, F.E. (1996). Men's misperceptions of women's interpersonal behaviors and sexual harassment. In M.S. Stockdale (Ed.), Sexual harassment in the workplace (pp. 67-84). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Zipple, K. (2003). Civil rights or workers' rights? Practices of implementation of sexual harassment policies in Germany and in the United States. In H. Gottfried and L.A. Reese (Eds.), Gender and Workplace Policy. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
36. Covey, S.R. (1990). Principle centered leadership. New York: Free Press; Saal, F.E. (1996). Men's misperceptions of women's interpersonal behaviors and sexual harassment. In M.S. Stockdale (Ed.), Sexual harassment in the workplace (pp. 67-84). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Zipple, K. (2003). Civil rights or workers' rights? Practices of implementation of sexual harassment policies in Germany and in the United States. In H. Gottfried and L.A. Reese (Eds.), Gender and Workplace Policy. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
37. Kidder, L.H., R.A. Lafleur, and C.V. Wells (1995). Recalling harassment, reconstructing experience. Journal of Social Issues, 51 (Spring), 53-67.
38. Reese, L.A. and K.E. Lindenberg (2002). It's the training, stupid. Paper presented at the annual meeting, Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL.