Sexual Harassment Training shouldn’t be a tickbox exercise
Sexual harassment training shouldn’t be a tickbox exercise.
Most of the training I’ve encountered follows a predictable formula:
✅ Creepy reenactments of men harassing women (often in dimly-lit offices)
✅ Followed by basic multiple-choice questions
✅ Then, congrats - you’ve done your part.
But the impacts of sexual harassment are serious and long-lasting. It affects careers, erodes confidence and damages the mental and physical well-being of the victims - most of whom are women.
Prevention training must be more impactful. It deserves more than just a tick-box approach. And with recent changes in legislation, employers are now rightly being asked to do more.
At Squash, we take a more human approach. Our training uses real-world scenarios that allow participants to understand the issue from multiple perspectives:
- The harasser's perspective: How intentions can misalign with impact.
- The recipient's perspective: How a colleague moves from feeling comfortable to uncomfortable.
- The fear of reporting: Understanding why victims often hesitate due to potential repercussions.
- The bystander’s perspective: How someone may feel uncomfortable with a colleague’s behaviour, even if it’s not aimed at them.
Sexual harassment doesn’t always look like the cliches we expect - there are many grey areas. If we don’t acknowledge these nuances, we’ll continue to miss the bigger picture. We’ll be forever searching for harassment in dimly-lit offices.
Using drama-based training helps us address these grey areas. It allows us to understand how unwanted behaviours manifest in everyday interactions and provides practical actions we can all take to create a culture where these behaviours are not tolerated. Because every single person plays a role in shaping that culture.
If you're ready to go beyond tick-box training, get in touch. DM me or email on rachel@wearesquash.com to learn more.
If you'd like to learn more about how Squash can help your organisation turn awareness into action through drama-based training, get in touch!
