Research: Women’s Complaints of Workplace Abuse Get Ignored More Than Men’s

In recent years, many organizations have reevaluated and attempted to improve their processes for reporting and investigating workplace abuse. But new research, which analyzed thousands of workplace reports, found that reports made by women are less likely to be taken seriously than identical reports made by men. This gap is widest when reports lack supporting evidence—which is especially common in workplace abuse cases. The authors argue that in order for leaders to address the gendered biases that impact how misconduct is handled, they need to understand why they occur. They analyze their data to offer insights and recommendations to help companies build the kind of equitable systems that their employees can trust.

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