Sexual harassment grievance at work

[User12334]

I've had a bit of a difficult time in work recently for lots of reasons, but mostly due to a male colleague. A couple of months back, my small team which is predominantly male were in a meeting, I had a v neck dress on and was quite fine and was happily going about my business. A few hours in for whatever, one of the male colleagues leaves the room, returns and hands me a safety pin clearly indicating to cover myself up. He said that "you can go use the private room". It took me a minute to actually process what was happening and I abruptly left the meeting, where my two managers were a bit like what's going on.
I stupidly used the pin because i was just so taken aback, I returned and felt like running away. At the end of the meeting, same colleague caught me at the end and said "did you manage to regain your modesty", which again I was so taken aback with I started justifying my dress choice.

We then were going on to do some social activities as a team day which I could see far enough, I did a detour to tesco to get a vest top to go underneath the dress, to which he again comes up to me and says "are you more comfortable now" 🙃

This isn't the first time he's giving me the ick but it's the first time it's gone too far. He has a habit of mansplaining things to me or talking over me in meetings etc. Dirty humour is really not my thing and when he has tried it in the past I've just ignored it or tried to change the subject but he continues anyway.

Anyway, I raised a grievance and everyone at work was really supportive until they weren't. I feel like since he had his review everyone's been like on his side in a way. A member of HR phoned me before I got the letter out and told me how distraught he was about the whole thing and that that should hopefully make rebuilding our relationship easier. My manager has outright said before as well when I have said about not wanting to be in a room alone with him that I need to be able to work with him again.

Fast forward a few weeks, we have a catch up where he actually fails to apologise without me prompting and is playing the neurodivergent card to explain his behaviour. I am also neurodivergent and know plenty of others who are but haven't sexually harassed their colleague.

I'm currently off work because I was feeling too run down by the whole thing and have recently discovered I'm pregnant. Before all this, I would only see this colleague face to face once a month at most as we are spread out geographically. My managers are now proposing we rotate office each week so we can work together more - despite being in the same team we all work on completely different things and have always worked primarily remotely. The travel to the other offices for me is 2.5/3 hours each way if the trains are on time. They are also aware of my pregnancy so between that and the grievance I'm really feeling a bit miffed about everything.

I don't really know what the point of this post is, I guess I'm just looking for some advice or maybe to be told I'm overthinking it and need to get over it lol.

I don’t think you’re over thinking, how dare he suggest you cover up. What was the outcome of the grievance? Just that he had to apologise? What have they put in place to enable you to feel safe in the office and to ensure you’re not approached by this guy inappropriately?

Bless his heart, crying because he’s been called out!

I’m not sure that you might be being a bit over sensitive here. Or possibly I’ve completely misunderstood. I’m just thinking that if a female colleague had offered you a safety pin would you have been as offended. I don’t see this as harassment as such, just a really clunky and poorly articulated mention that your dress was maybe not fastened properly?

It’s inappropriate behaviour, and I understand how it makes you feel uncomfortable, but it’s not sexual harassment. Management do need to address it with him firmly, but unless there is more to the story, then I don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to expect to continue working with him.

I'd get a t shrtt printed with
STOP BLOODY LOOKING
.he sounds hideous..

I didn't initially see it as sexual harassment, my manager was actually the one that said it was and I think if you look at the Acas definition it does fit but I know it sounds extreme. I'm totally fine working with him, it's more the expecting us to work face to face each week when we didnt have to previously. The grievance was upheld, but I feel a bit like okay it's upheld get on with it now but I still have lingering feelings. There has been previous inappropriateness i just didn't have the confidence to address at the time, one example being when speaking openly about having thr BRCA2 gene and possible preventive mastectomy in the future he replied with "oh you going to come in looking like Pamela Anderson"

I think there is an element of being sensitive, however if he was purely trying to help, he could have messaged me on Teams as we were all sitting on our laptops or he could have pulled me aside and asked if I wanted help. There was nothing wrong with my dress and had this confirmed by multiple others as I was concerned it was too low cut, but frankly it was none of his business. To me he just made it obvious he was staring at my chest and made it his mission to save me which is misogyny at best. If I felt a female colleague was leering as well then I would definitely call it out. There is some background behaviour of his that has been creepy/inappropriate.

Thank you!! The grievance was upheld, I think he had some actions to takeaway and had to do some e-learning but nothing of a disciplinary nature from what I've heard. There was some agreements on the way we'd work like keeping boundaries professional etc. But it does feel a bit like it's been upheld now get on with it!

Totally this, I actually felt bad for a second when they kept telling me how distraught he was, the letter said how he was trying to help a "colleague in distress", I absolutely wasn't!! I didn't get an ounce of upset from him in our call so I don't doubt it was a bit for show. I appreciate your reply though, I think working in a male dominated team as well makes it easier to question myself

It very much feels like sexual harassment to me. He sounds very manipulative to me, the “colleague in distress” bit is especially icky

I would be going back to HR telling them what's distressing is being made to feel like you were in a professional meeting and by a colleague who had no right whatsoever to patronise you in the way that he did. His remarks weren't anything to do with your work ability, it was purely personal and sexual.

They're being just as patronising as he was ffs.

How is the behaviour of a sexual nature?

Pick me, Nigel!

it doesn’t matter if it was a female colleague because it wasn’t! The OP has every right to feel affronted because her colleague had no right to make her feel uncomfortable about her choice of clothing.

I think your immediate response was to validate his comment, which was not a good start. You should have told him to hop upon his biocycle; and if he had persisted then tell him you would report him to management for sexual harassment.

I’d treat any comment about me restoring my modesty as sexual harassment. Assuming I’m not swinging my tits in the open office no one has any right to ask me to cover up, or be modest - such a misogynistic way of looking at women.

The concept of modesty is about not drawing male attention to your sexual characteristics, to police women’s sexuality. Commenting on my lack of “modesty” suggests them looking at my body in a sexual way and wanting me to change my behaviour so he doesn’t need to change his - hence sexual harassment.

Gives her a safety pin to amend her dress to “cover her up”, staring at her chest commenting on vest top she added to her outfit and combining references to her breasts with Pamela Anderson

If you compare this to what the ACAS website says “To be sexual harassment, the unwanted behaviour must have either:

• violated someone's dignity
• created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for someone”

This. I wouldn’t dream of commenting on a males colleagues outfit choices and don’t think they are any of my business

It’s of a sexual nature AND caused those effects. I don’t see how it’s sexual harassment. Unprofessional, inappropriate and warrants investigation, yes.

If only we were all that confident. That’s an ideal world scenario outcome, in reality the OP probably felt too embarrassed and singled out to react in any other way. Easy to think “I should have done this” in hindsight after the moment passed.

You don’t think telling someone they should up their tits is sexual in nature?

I would challenge the 3 hour commute by saying it’s not in the expectations for my role and hasn’t got precedent. I’d ask them to justify its business need compared to the time it takes out of your personal lives of 6 hours a day.

I think he was relying on OP being caught on the back foot as he blindsided her and caught her on the back foot. Then he started trying to cultivate that dynamic more and more

Do you mean ‘cover up’? No I don’t think encouraging modesty is synonymous with sexual harassment or is sexually driven. It can be archaic, misogynistic, inappropriate, unprofessional, worthy of a workplace investigation and a disciplinary. But that doesn’t make it sexual harassment.

The Pamela Anderson comment doesn’t form part of OP’s grievance, as I understand it. It was only the safety pin incident.

Cool. That’s ok then

Who said it was ok?

That's correct but it was provided as context for previous behaviour. Another example was referring to an office space as "name's pumping room", as a new mother used the quiet office space to privately breast pump. Seems to be a recurring theme