The Most Watched Show at the Office? Sexual Harassment Training Videos

In the second office, where the girl almost gets her ear eaten off (if it wouldn't be a copyright issue, they could use the theme from "Jaws" for more subtlety), I think part of the problem is that the "workplace" looks like there's no work in it, just the "good guy" relaxing with his phone, another guy trying to devour a female, and a sofa. If you're in an "office" that's basically an apartment, with no work there and basically nothing there but a sofa, people looking like they have noting to do but watch the clock tick by, maybe catch a video on the phone or PC... pretty soon somebody is going to think about putting the sofa to use.

Three times in my life I had bosses tell me that if there was any sexual harassing to be done, they got to do it, because they had had the training. They all thought the "joke" was hilarious. Is this still considered amusing, or are men becoming enlightened at all? While I find videos of limited use, well guided conversations and questions they initiate can be helpful. For example, I remember the supervisor who didn't see a problem with asking out an employee for a third time, although she had told him "no" twice before. Some people have to be metaphorically hit over the head to help them learn what is and is not acceptable behavior.

I watched one of these on sexual harassment and one of the actors did a great job of portraying a really creepy guy. It could end his career.

There's no evidence in my office that the bigots have changed their minds since anti-discrimination and anti-harassment training became mandatory. They're just as vocal and just as bigoted.

Yes, it's a training video, but does the female actor have to act so helpless? Why can't she tell the guy to back off or push him away? Why does she have to be rescued? It would be great to have training videos on how to respond to harassment. Similar to a fire drill, or CPR training, people would know what to do next.

We need to have training in microaggression which is running rampant offices nationwide. The younger generations may think they are in a post racial world, but they have adopted hostile and offensive behaviors of their parents and grand parents

"...because we think our audience is sophisticated." I really, really hate to think what these videos would look like if the producers thought hugely worse of those of us.

You know what's easier? Not even bothering to engage women in the workplace unless you have to. The last team night I had was 9 dudes. Outlets have reported the Wallstreet culture is now 'avoid women at all costs'. It's become too much of liability. We know, keep our hands to ourselves and our following eyes to the ground, etc. However, it's not the worth the risk. I do not schedule meeting rooms with females alone, only in open work spaces when it's a single female. All IMs are logged, and I do not joke with women. In banking, don't travel with a woman alone or dine with a woman alone. This leaves them out of crucial networking opportunities since most partners are men. Can't blame men. We don't want someone to say they were sleighted 30 years ago by some comment they found offensive. You reap what you sow.

I was a management-side labor/employment lawyer for some 35 years, both in private practice and in-house. And my experience, as well as that of every other employment lawyer I ever discussed it, with was that the overwhelming majority of the sexual harassment charges we had to defend had merit. We tried all kinds of consciousness-raising sessions from top management on down to floor supervisors and made a great training video that got its point across with a scene intended to be hard not to laugh at. (It started out with a couple of good ole boys guffawing over a condom they had managed to put on the end of one of the blades of a forklift, teasing their female coworker, “Waddya think, Susie? You know how the boss is always ragging us about ‘safe’ work practices.”). But we didn’t get any real traction until the CEO made it clear he would personally ensure that anyone who engaged in sexual harassment was fired. No exceptions for high ranking officers, no exceptions for those who made a lot of money for the company, no passes for “first offense.” And then he followed through, making sure word got out that “NOBODY is so important they get to stay here when they treat people like that.” I am convinced that without that message and follow-through, coming from the very top of the house, our training video would have been nothing but a very unfunny joke.

Ed Wood would be proud.

Companies--and in my case, hospitals, as physicians such as myself are forced to partake of these "trainings" year after year--are not getting value added. These scenarios are laughably obvious, and grossly dissimilar to any situation I've encountered or heard of in real life. It's an analogous situation to the mandatory ethics course I took in medical school: Those who have ethics don't need the course, and those who don't got nothing out of it, in fact ridiculed it every step of the way. Either your parents raised you right, or they didn't.

Generally, - would employers show videos if they didn't Have to? No. - would employees watch videos if they didn't Have to? No. - can we all check the box to say we complied? Yes. - does it really make a difference? Meh. All too often, output (the videos) is equated to outcome (significant changes in behavior), and they do NOT correlate. But, hey, we showed the videos and now we don't have to do that for another six months/year/two years/lifetime.

Unlike most of the commenters, I do not think sexual harassment training videos and sessions are useless. Could more be done to help victims? Yes. But this is a start. In my little niche in science, two prominent people in the last year were terminated because of sexual harassment claims so yes, reports are definitely starting to get taken more seriously. 1. It sends a message from leadership, not just content-wise but attitude-wise what they believe. Leadership often sets the tone for an organization. Especially if they take it seriously and not just as a kabuki show. 2. For victims, it send a message what is considered harassment. Perhaps it's obvious to jaded NYT commenters but there are young people, people of color, poor people, etc. who tolerate lots of bad behavior because they think it is the norm and no one cares. 3. For harassers and assaulters, it decreases the excuse that they had no idea what they were doing was wrong/ illegal since it can be documented they underwent some degree of training.

I work at a large corporation. These training sessions (and especially videos) used to be excruciating and forgettable, but I must say they've been getting more watchable and thought provoking over the past year. Yes, some of them are uncomfortable and many bring up obvious points. But on the whole I do believe they nudge people in the right direction.

Quote from our tutorial: "Even a well-intentioned person can commit unlawful harassment." In other words, stay away from other people.

When I worked at Petco corporate we had to watch these every year or 2. We all said - we never felt more violated at work than having to watch the videos!!!!

I've conducted Sexual Harassment sessions and would never use videos. Discussion with and among participants is usually more effective along with a review of the policy. Even better is a policy generated by the staff itself, which usually mirrors what a company would have generated. That way, you'll have more buy-in.

I've been taking similar training with videos at work for years. Many of us cubicle workers have been demonstrating that we know how to act appropriately, well before the #MeToo era.

Most-watched at office? Um, I think it's still TikTok.

That guy who calls out his colleague for harrassing a female coworker was texting during company time, instead of working. In real life the harrasser would blackmail him: "Look, I see you engaged with your cellphone instead of working, I'm onto you buddy. Don't rock my boat and I won't rock yours. Capesch?"

Are we actually using the "hooked up" slang/euphemism in the Newspaper of Record now?

These videos have me crying laughing. They made my day! Please post more. I love the pauses especially and the sullen face when the second dude gets called out for ear nibbling.

These videos are just like the barrage of made-up stories being forced on readers and viewers by major media. People are subjected to this contrived drama with bad acting at work and then when it's supposed to be relaxation time at home it shows up in the fictitious shows like Law and Order SVU with whatever kind of swill they can dream up. Heinous is right! I keep turning the channel but it's pretty much everywhere. It's just more propaganda and is not an accurate reflection of reality, just more fake news perpetrated by greedy opportunists willing to get on any bandwagon that will make them a buck. You wouldn't believe how many of these so called training sessions the HR dept made us all watch. Thousands and thousands of very expensive hours of time.

Yup...these videos are yet another example of our litigious society, political-correctness, knee-jerk reactions, and companies now having to 'check-off various boxes' so that they get a public relations Good Housekeeping seal of approval. These videos are so lame as to almost be laughable. And like every other corporate drone worker out there, we all must complete this (ahem) 'training'. Like most others, I typically take half the time it typically says is required for these 'trainings' (which can usually be done at one's leisure on one's work PC, but just clicking on a link...). I typically fly through these videos, honing in on the key points and phrases I know will be a part of the 'test' at the very end. And I almost always pass with flying colors. A total waste of most people's time, and utterly transparent and self-serving on the part of the employer/business.

Everyone should wear a sumo suit at work. In futuristic movies, workers always wear skintight suits. But I see a future with everyone in fat suits. Everyone will wear inflatable clothing.

A pox on the legislators who’ve forced this “training” on us. I wasted a night of my life enduring one of these videos; the only thing that lessened my irritation was the ubiquitous mockery and derision my coworkers expressed for the training in the days and weeks that followed.

I work for an arts non-profit in NY State and I also teach music at a couple of local colleges. I had to go through 3 separate sexual harassment training video programs--a separate one for each of my employers. I found all 3 of them excruciating to watch and a frustrating waste of my time. Don't get me wrong! Sexual harassment is a serious problem, and I'm glad that the #metoo movement is changing the old rules and calling out some egregiously bad behavior. We need to fix this problem. But these videos seem really useless to me. If a university teacher needs to watch a video to learn that it's wrong to demand sexual favors in exchange for good grades, then that person shouldn't be teaching, to begin with. And I seriously doubt that watching a poorly-acted video will make anyone change his or her behavior. It seems clear to me that this has much more to do with providing a legal shield for my employers than it does with actually preventing bad behavior. I'm also afraid that's what HR is mainly about, anyway.

NY State has a requirement to complete such training by the end of the year. It consists of a 164 slide death by power point presentation that includes some video. You cannot save your progress and you have to invest about 60 minutes of your time... and we have to complete it every single year going forward. It is a mess of a piece of "training", to say the least. Long story short, poorly conceived training initiatives will not make things better.

As a lawyer who represents victims of discrimination (including sexual harassment), my first thought when I hear of trainings like these is "Gee, I didn't know they needed training. I thought they knew how to do it just fine." Pardon my cynicism, but in my experience, videos and lectures about workplace harassment are most often attempts to inoculate the employer against liability, rather than serious attempts to deal with the problems of sexual harassment.

These videos mostly inspire crude jokes after the fact. Jokes which are more uncomfortable than the videos. Television is once ill-equipped to handle reality.

Let’s be honest: these videos are straight-up comedy. We watch them and laugh, then select the “right” answer, click submit and check the HR box. These are just more feel-food, PC garbage that make no difference in the world.

The new sexual harassment videos are really well done. Training is a start to changing office culture. It leads to discussion and can lead to empathy from people who may not realize what their coworkers experience. And trainings that are engaging are especially effective. Keep them coming!

A perfect example of a poorly thought out law. I was forced to sit through one of these courses even though I am a 66-year-old woman who works almost entirely at home, alone. What a waste of time. Who am I going harass? My dog?

They don't work. A few years ago, I had to oversee the entire staff getting trained, a hundred employee or so, and I still had to go and personally intervene; writing up individuals, changing their shifts, calling them out, and other ineffective attempts to try and stop it. The problem? Management wouldn't fire anyone. There were no consequences. They met the letter of the law with the films.

Unless you have an outside person(s) or organization to report your complaints to (as with whistle-blower complaints) and investigates those complaints, you don't really have a program in place. Yes, there are companies (of all sizes) who take this very seriously but I don't think they are in the majority.

While the scenarios and lines may seem far-fetched, sadly it does happen in the workplace. The company I work for takes these matters seriously and requires us to go through training with lectures as well as these videos. Individuals need to take responsibility for their actions and if in a workplace setting, companies need to penalize the offender.

I took a few of these tutorials myself and even though they might seem obvious and repetitive, there's usually one or two nuggets in there that you may not have thought of. But for those of you that have never taken any, and if you really want to ace it, remember that the correct answer is ALWAYS "if unsure check with HR". HR - the place where nobody lasts longer than two years and yet they are experts on everything.

Re the clip where the woman is filing and the co-worker is putting his hands on her as well as talking inappropriately - all the supervisor says is he doesn’t think she wants to hear the guys stories. I hope the supervisor does a lot more than that - including interviewing the woman.

Doesn't seem to work. But management can check off a box that they are doing something. The same thing's probably true for ethics training. Are there corporate training areas which can actually be shown (convincingly) to work?

They’re also great to watch ironically. Sweet production budgets. Actors clearly, barely acquainted. Yes I know, serious topic. Relax. You can also just look at something..wait..didn’t mean it like that.

When my employer mandated this training, which meant watching one of these videos, the scenes were realistic enough that I had nightmares for weeks. After that I refused to watch the videos and insisted on a face to face meeting with the title IX officer where the policies re: sexual harassment and the options to seek help and support were explained in detail. Others in my unit also attended these sessions. We could ask questions, seek more detailed explanations, and find out more about developments pertinent to our organization. Altogether a much more helpful and informative approach than a generic video played for a passive and probably inattentive, possibly resentful, mass audience.

Oh, these videos are fantastic. My employer relies on such videos to cover topics including sexual harassment, micro-aggressions, business ethics, etc. All meaningless window dressing to check the boxes for legal. When it comes down to actual work-place problems, HR - with advice from legal - will tell you that a problem, which any normal human being would recognize as such, doesn't meet a legal standard/definition so nothing needs to be done/corrected. And to top it off, the company had a high-level manager, who believed that women employees shouldn't try to advance in their careers, in charge of handling harassment claims. The end result - swept them under the carpet - and it probably had to be a palace-sized oriental carpet to cover all of it. Other companies in the same industry fire upper-level managers for behavior such as bias. Would that the standards for courteous behavior and equal treatment applied to all levels of a company and not just to the majority of individuals who aren't management.

Around 1980, I was working for the Chase Manhattan Bank. Sexual harassment was a problem. Male managers were demoted and many women were promoted. We were shown training films on how to act properly and legally. A few years later, I was at NBC - sexual harassment was a problem. I, along with other managers, attended many seminars trying to curb the abuse. Fast forward to 2019. Nothing much has changed. All the training, warnings, #metoo disclosures and firings don’t seem to make a difference.

Talking about timing: yesterday I finished a 3.5 hour online sexual harassment course. All employees are required to do it. It was a lot of information and I did learn about legal definitions, etc. that I didn't know before. Yet, it took 3.5 hours and then we had a test of 10 questions and were required to get 80% or we had to go back and do it again. I think that's a set up ripe for cheating. PS. I got a 90