Preventing Sexist Harassment in the Workplace: A mapping and typology of available sexist harassment prevention tools in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden

Since the late 1970s, workplace sexual harassment has received socio-legal recognition and a substantial body of literature has documented the extent and implications of workplace sexual harassment as well as recommended ways to prevent workplace sexual harassment. Nevertheless, recent studies point to the lack of research whose primary research object is the prevention of sexual harassment.
It has been the ambition of the Power Plays study to not only map existing workplace sexist harassment prevention tools in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, but also to develop a sexual harassment prevention typology that can be of use to organisations in the form of a tools compass enabling informed and systematic efforts to prevent workplace sexist harassment.
The study has had a primary interest in workplaces of care. Accordingly, The Power Plays study departs from a theoretical conceptualisation of sexist
harassment prevention, which not only acknowledges the continuum of sexist harassment spanning from jokes to rape but also recognises a salutogenetic approach to prevention that requires knowledge of sexist harassment, competences to manage sexist harassment as wells as purposeful involvement of all parties in the prevention work.

Data collection and analytical strategies
Most often sexist harassment prevention tools are found in the category of grey literature on the internet. Therefore, preliminary searches on Google were conducted by using key terms identified in the research literature following the method of “snow-balling”. The tools for primary prevention of workplace sexist harassment or tools for dealing with sexist harassment (secondary or tertiary prevention) were included in the analysis. The tools that were based on legislation, descriptive accounts of sexual harassment (research, definitions),
statistics, etc. and internal guidelines in public organisations were excluded.
The analytical process entailed a descriptive mapping of the available prevention tools in the three countries of Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, and was subsequently followed by a typologising of the identified prevention tools that was eventually used to develop a prevention tools compass.

Mapping of workplace sexist harassment prevention tools
The mapping analysis comprises 38 prevention tools: 19 (DK), 13 (FI), and 6 (SWE). The tools are developed by major labour market organisations such as trade unions, industry councils, and public authorities or research institutes whose remits include the labour market. A few tools are developed by NGOs or private consultancies in each country. The notion of sexist harassment used in the identified tools is typically “sexual harassment” apart from a few exceptions such as “sexist violence” and “act that violates the person’s sexuality”. The tools’ definitions of sexist harassment are very much aligned with the national legal frameworks. The objectives of the tools vary widely from promoting dialogue,
enhancing the ability to speak up in situations of sexist harassment, to clarifying the roles and (legal) responsibilities of managers, employees, and union/work environment representatives, respectively. Across all identified tools there seem to be a strong tendency for the tools to target all workplace actors with the same toolkit, i.e., employers, managers, union representatives, work environment representatives, and employees. There also seem to be an overweight of
guidelines presenting bullet points on how to respond to situations of sexist harassment in the workplace. A minor part of the tools displays various dialogue exercises, and these tools are primarily found in Denmark.

Typology of workplace sexist harassment prevention tools
To enable a typologising of the mapped sexist harassment prevention tools, three key dimensions were plotted: 1) purpose (guidelines, mapping tools, awareness raising), 2) target group (individual, organization, individual/organization) and 3) timing (prevention, intervention, resolving). Based on the insights of the typology, there is clearly an overweight of existing prevention tools with the purpose of providing guidelines for how to respond to sexist harassment. Much less prevention tools have been found holding the purpose of mapping sexist
harassment in the workplace or raising awareness. In terms of guidelines, existing Nordic prevention tools seem to be responsive to all three levels of prevention (i.e., timing). Nevertheless, we observe a certain bias towards guidelines
for preventive measures prior to (16) and intervening (18) in cases of sexist harassment. Hence, much less guidelines (9) are designed to guide the resolving and aftercare post incidents of sexist harassment. A similar pattern can be observed among the identified mapping tools and awareness raising tools. These types of tools present themselves as primarily relevant prior to identified or reported incidents of sexist harassment. However, two awareness raising tools were identified that promote awareness and training on how to observe and how to respond when the line has been crossed (e.g., in terms of sexist bullying). These observations display evidence of the lack of comprehensive sexist harassment prevention tools that meet all three purposes of guiding, mapping and awareness raising and address all three levels of prevention in terms of timing. The identified tools categorized as addressing primary prevention work have predominantly the organisation as their target group, and less the individual. Accordingly, it can be argued that the existing prevention tools offer support to employers to comply with the legislative frameworks holding them legally responsible for ensuring a psychologically and physically safe work environment, particularly in Finland and Sweden. Prevention tools categorised as suitable for intervention measures (i.e., secondary prevention) target individual employers
and employees to a much larger degree. Whereas as tools for resolving and conducting aftercare post incidents of sexist harassment seem to be evenly targeting the individual and the organisational level.

Conclusion
Based on these typological observations, it can be argued that existing Nordic workplace sexist harassment prevention tools are very much aligned with research recommendations. However, since more than half of the identified tools target the individual as well as organisational level, this leaves workplaces with the responsibility to acknowledge the importance of doing sexist harassment prevention on an organisational level and prioritise collective actions. In the identified tools, employees were referred to as either targets of sexist harassment or as bystanders witnessing sexist harassment. Yet, no tools seem to target individual perpetrators of sexist harassment. In sum, this research report has contributed a detailed mapping of 38 available workplace sexist harassment prevention tools in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. Based on this mapping, the study also contributes a typology of workplace sexist harassment prevention tools
serving both an analytical purpose recommended for future research use as well as a practical purpose transformed into a tools compass for workplace sexist harassment prevention. This compass is recommended to be used by employers and employees as a navigation tool in the field of sexist harassment prevention work to choose the right (set of) tools and secure efficient 360-degree prevention work in the workplace.

Recommendations
Based on the findings, it is recommended that future research and innovation on workplace sexist harassment prevention tools:
• diversify and combine workplace sexist harassment prevention tools in terms of purpose and timing
• clarify the roles and responsibilities at organisational and individual levels when preventing, intervening, and resolving workplace sexist harassment
• Focus emphasis on developing anti-sexist harassment workplace cultures