I believe that the Universe talks to us, all day everyday. We’re never alone, we’re always connected to something bigger than us. Some may call it a community, the language of the world, God, whatever fits you, we’re always connected.

I also believe that if something needs to come to our attention, it will come in the form of a poke, an allusion, a passing mention. If we don’t pay attention, it will become louder, heavier, more forceful. So I try to pay attention to the pokes, it saves time 🙂

I was in a conversation lately with a business owner looking for sexual harassment training. I promised to make a few phone calls to connect that person to a professional. I also did some quick research on the subject. I’m curious that way.

I found out that sexual harassment training doesn’t work. How did that show? 88% of women still endure sexual harassment at work and 95% of them report that the male perpetrators went unpunished. According to the EEOC, $52.3 million dollars in damages were received from claims in sexual harassment in 2011. That’s millions of consequences from training that doesn’t work. That’s millions of evidences that the current training are ineffective. And that’s the tip of the iceberg. Most people do not report the harassment. Reported harassment don’t always come to a resolution or settlement. Fewer men report it than women. The numbers we have are not even representative of the truth. I’ll let you think about that for a moment…

Something needs to give, something needs to change!

That’s why I’m now offering sexual harassment and sensibility training that will address what’s missing: perspective taking and cultural understanding

Sexual harassment is in most cases about micro aggression and oblivious behavior. Yes, some harassing behaviors are obvious, others are not.

Yes, HR personnel goes through the training but how many of them are qualified or inspired to actually talk about harassment and hold space for both parties, the perpetrator and the recipient? That’s a lot of shame involved and most people don’t have the communication to talk about shame. Of all the training I went through in my corporate days, very little was dedicated to the subtleties of an hostile environment and the true harm of cultural expectations between genders, races or sexual orientations.

We need to bring knowledge, compassion and perspective taking to the work place. How can we expect people to learn about how to interact with one another by sitting in front of a screen for 1 hour? That’s not training, that’s a waste of time.

We can change the way we interact with one another in an accepting and compassionate way.

Reach for the Greatest Version of Yourself!

Paola