Reported male colleagues to HR

[Explorer36]

I attended our team meal last night - the usual meal/drinks afterwards. We are a big corporate company; the team I’m specifically on is a mix of ages and genders and everyone generally gets along quite well. We’ve got a vacancy due to someone retiring and it’s being advertised at the moment. Discussion was had between myself and two male colleagues - essentially ‘wonder whether it will be someone internal of external brought in’

The following exchange went along these lines:

Colleague 1 - I just hope they are fit
Colleague 2 - yeah, we need some younger blood. Blonde hair, boobs, tight little arse.
Colleague 1 - bit of eye candy, makes the day go faster
Me - I don’t think that’s how the company recruit people
Colleague 2 - manager name will look after us, he knows what we want (laughter between them both)
Me - Sorry, but that’s really not appropriate is it
Colleague 1 - if it was a good looking bloke you’d all be creaming your knickers so don’t give me that sort of attitude (laughter again)
Colleague 2 - Yeah, we know what you lot are like- dirty old women.

I told them I was uncomfortable at this point and I joined another group. After discussing this was a colleague earlier, she encouraged me to submit a HR report as for me, a line was crossed.

They are early 30’s and old enough to know better - one of them is married with kids.

Would you have done the same?

You have done the right thing. I hope your HR department take serious action.

That is disgusting and totally unprofessional. I'd go so far as to say targeted to try to put you in your place.

Well Done!

yep - I’m pretty chilled about this sort of thing and wouldn’t take any notice of ‘hope they are fit’ but the rest of oTT and offensive.

Totally normal when I worked in an office.
But that was almost 20 years ago…

We’ve come a long way since then!
Or so I thought, you’re right to report it.

You've absolutely done the right thing. God help anybody getting that job with people like that working for them.

If you had entered into "banter" before that yabu...but I doubt you have.

I worked in a great group, one of the women was being quite graphic and I asked "is there nothing that doesn't make you think of sex?" " yes Jabs...you".

However I also managed a team where a guy made really uncalled for comments about the way the women in my team dressed it was the 90s so hipster jeans hung low and underwear on display. I asked the women if they wanted to make a formal complaint with my support. They didn't, but talked to the guy and suggested he look for another job as there was no way I would support his progression in our company and that he really needed to think about his behaviour.

The legislation around sexual harassment changed in October '24. There's more responsibility on the employer to proactively protect employees from SH.

As thus was a team night out, this would fall under the remit of the legislation prior and since the change.

You did the right thing as a) you were uncomfortable with the conversation and b) you are encouraging the company to deal with any potential issue.

If the conversation was during work hours I'd have reported. If out of work hours and during a social event that I can choose to attend or not, I wouldn't.

They’re disgusting and absolutely need to be dealt with. A completely unacceptable way to talk to a colleague about a potential colleague

My goodness that's what I was going to say: even if a lot of men are still misogynistic idiots I would have thought talking openly like that in a work setting was from a by- gone era. That most people now pay lip service to politically correct language about women in a work setting even if they privately still are neanderthals.
Good for you for reporting them OP.

This.

I don’t blush easy and work in a male dominated environment but the suggestion I’d “cream my knickers if” is proper offensive for the workplace. Idiots.

I hate work events that involve alcohol, stupid things happen.

But why should we have to put up with crude comments just because we choose to attend a work night out?

I work in a mostly male team and this wouldn’t happen in front of me because they are respectful and professional.

20 years ago I was working in print with pretty much all men. There was plenty of jokes and banter but not one of them ever was that crude, they were pretty respectful in the main.

I have never, ever heard a man use the expression "creaming your knickers". That's horrible. 🤢

I wouldn't report it to the HR dept at work when it happened at a social event. No one has to put up with crude comments in a social setting, we are all free to speak to who we want and ignore who we want.
We have work nights out and if one of the males in our team said something that offended me , it wouldn't even enter my head to report him at work.
Unless this was a paid work event , it's not too clear from op.

Indeed. Whilst the OP, based on what she is saying, is correct to inform HR, I am mindful that the majority of men do not behave like this in the workplace. This said, I have also heard some pretty sexist and sexualised language towards men in the workplace, perpetrated by women, and hope this gets reported too, but I suspect it's not.

P.S. I work in the public sector and so alcohol-fueled (compulsory?) workplace socials aren't really a thing.

You hear women do this and 'hope' it gets reported? Surely you reported it yourself if you were the one who heard it?

It might be out of work hours, but it's a work team meal and presumably, even if it's technically voluntary whether you attend or not, it's one of those things where you get informally marked down for whether you attend or not.

Not to HR. But I have had a stern, authority-figure word with the other women doing this, apologies have then been offered, and this has been sufficient to manage the situation without involving HR. Clearly if this doesn't manage the situation, and it occurs again, I would involve HR directly. Thanks for your reply.

You have done the right thing. I worked in a male dominated environment where conversations like this were commonplace. We just accepted it as being the way it was, told them they were tossers and left it at that. I now wonder why, and feel guilty that I didn’t report them to help improve things for the women who came after us. I can only apologise

You've just made two enemies for life.

They were bang out of order. Can’t say stuff like that on a work night out.

Exactly. Also if this sort of crap is normalised on work social events it can lead to women not attending as they feel uncomfortable or excluded, this can then put them at a disadvantage as building relationships is important in many sectors. You seem to be suggesting that OP shouldn't attend work socials if she doesn't want to have to deal with sexual harassment. Maybe women should just stop going outside?

Or she will have saved the company a fucktonne from SH claims, and made the workplace safer for the women that work there and are recruited later.

Under new legislation “bants” like this is a serious matter, HR should take it very seriously. Not only were they sexist pricks, but sexist pricks that were warned twice to rein it in.

didclaimer, I worked on a City trading floor in the 90’s where this was the norm. It wasn’t right then even though we threw back as much as we got, but it’s definitely very wrong now.