Awareness of sexual harassment was raised considerably by the #MeToo movement, which illustrated the widespread nature of the problem, both in Hollywood and numerous other sectors.  It revealed that sexual harassment was a particular problem in various service sectors, with baristas, waitresses, and bartenders all coming forward with their stories of abuse at work.

Research from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign suggests that our colleagues can play a crucial role in stopping unwanted advances at work.

“The service industry is rife with customers who sexually harass workers, and it’s a big problem for managers and employees,” the researchers say. “There’s been a lot of focus on sexual harassment that comes from within an organization, but there hasn’t been as much focus on sexual harassment that comes from outside an organization, from people who aren’t subject to the company’s rules and regulations. The service industry and its employees have less guidance about how to deal with customer sexual harassment compared with something like intraoffice sexual harassment.”

Rejecting advances

This can be especially challenging in a customer service environment as there is the unwritten rule that the customer is always right and staff should not do anything that may drive them away.

“Customer sexual harassment is a persistent problem that harms worker well-being in many service-sector industries,” the researchers explain. “In turn, bystander interventions in the workplace are critical for preventing and stopping customers’ inappropriate behaviors as well as mitigating the detrimental effects of such harassment on workers. We hope this research will bring more attention to employers’ and organizations’ roles in protecting employees from customer sexual harassment and supporting their employees’ bystander intervention.”

The researchers conducted a couple of surveys featuring nearly 300 service employees who engaged with customers on a daily basis.  The surveys were designed to gauge the rates of sexual harassment from customers as well as features of people’s job, including their reliance on tips from the customers.

Bystander support

The results of the survey highlight the crucial role bystander employees can play.  It suggests that these bystanders can develop stronger empathy towards co-workers when they observe them on the receiving end of sexual harassment from customers.  This makes them more likely to intervene, both in terms of disrupting the harassment itself and comforting their colleague afterward.

Perhaps just as importantly, there was a particular desire to intervene among employees with a strong belief in so-called moral idealism, which describes the link between doing the right thing and securing the right outcomes.

The findings are valuable, as customer sexual harassment can be a significant problem, especially in jobs where customer satisfaction is at a premium and where employees rely on tips to supplement their income.

“Awareness of the problems with U.S. tipping culture and customs appears to be growing, as more and more data seem to show that reliance on tipping not only increases workers’ vulnerability to mistreatment at work but also worsens racial and gender inequality and worker exploitation,” the researchers conclude. “We strongly encourage employers and employees’ advocacy groups to actively discuss and create a public discourse about how to reduce workers’ pay reliance on tipping – for example, by providing a higher minimum wage or replacing tipping with a fixed hourly wage – to better protect service workers from customer sexual harassment.”