Gender safe work environment - A study of a gender safety climate which prevents sexual harassment and gender discrimination at work

The #me too movement convinced the world that gender discrimination and sexual harassment is a considerable organizational problem. It is obvious that in today’s working life, many employees do not feel safe.

We argue that organizations need to develop a gender safe work environment, where sexual harassment and gender discrimination has been abolished and where men and women get equal opportunities.

The overall aim with this study is to exploreorganization’s possibilities to understand and monitor the work environment and the organizational climate as ways of preventing sexual harassment and gender discrimination at work.how a gender perspective, based on Connell (2006) and Acker’s (1990; 2009) work on gender regimes, inequality regimes and gendered organizations, adds to the body of knowledge on organizational climates related to sexual harassment and gender discrimination.

We will examine different facets of organizational climate (Schneider et al, 2017) e.g. organizations´ safety climate (Dollard & Bakker, 2010) and organizations´ gender safety climate.

To measure organizations´ gender safety climate, we will use and further develop a measure which we, based on Connell´s (2006) work, previously have developed (Biswas et al, 2017; Allard, Biswas & Pousette, 2020).

Through method triangulation, this study will contribute with knowledge aboutwhat facets of organizational climate are needed in a gender safe work environment.how a gender safe work environment is related to sexual harassment, gender discrimination and violations.how a gender safe work environment is related to organizational effectiveness.Based on the results we will develop a tool for practitioners to analyze sexual harassment and gender discrimination as organizational problems and give employers 1) a possibility to identify risks in the psychosocial work environment and 2) knowledge about how to prevent sexual harassment and gender discrimination on primary, secondary and tertiary levels.