What are the top 10 local firms which take student interns and expose them to sexual harassment? Is your company safe and not listed?
Welcome to the world of reputational risk management. One day such a list will leak and cause all sorts of commotion in the business sector. One day books will be published detailing sexual harassment at work places and it will cause serious reputational damage to many high profile business personalities.
The student internship programme was first launched in the country in the 90s and has been successful in bridging the formal employment skills gap. Thousands of students from all colleges have been successfully placed and acquiring work critical skills before graduation. A good number performed well during internship and managed to secure jobs before graduation.
However there is a dark side to this initiative….sexual harassment of students! This goes unreported as the students fear victimisation; the colleges do not help either as they want to forge strong partnerships with the private sector. They would rather keep these issues hidden away.
A good number of students are suffering quietly; some managers are also exerting or coercing students to enter into sexual relationships in return for increased stipends or favours. The internet especially social media is however empowering students to speak up. What most companies and universities are sweeping under the carpet will however find a convenient gate way…social media!
Social media is an empowerment tool that enables everything hidden to come out in the open. So how safe is your company, NGO or informal business from the next sexual harassment exposure? Are you aware of the sexual harassment tag that will follow your organisation and the financial and social repercussions?
Universities
They need strong student intern policies and they should include whistle blowing facilities. A student should not just be placed for attachment without going through an induction of the expectations of the work place, problems to be encountered and sexual harassment. Colleges are just sending students away for internship without proper induction. They could be safe for now but a time is going to come when past and current students raise these issues-the reputation of the college will be at stake.
Colleges also need to brainstorm and come up with mechanisms for students who fail to find attachment places. The failure to land attachment places is leading to many ending up in the wrong hands. Colleges need to find innovative ways of still giving students industrial attachment experience and some of it can be short term research projects with NGOs and companies. Some colleges can even invite the informal sector for assistance. For instance establishing university owned companies and encouraging the informal sector to bring their financial records with students preparing financial accounts for a nominal fee.
Companies
We would like to acknowledge the importance industry plays in providing employment and skills training facilities. The nation has benefited immensely from the university, private and public sector partnerships. Our nation is much richer with a skilled workforce. However be wary of intern’s sexual harassment. It can lead to reputational damage of companies when these issues are brought to the public domain. The internet is making it easier to expose such cases and you have no control over who leaks what.
Therefore before accepting students for internship, take cognisance of the risks you are carrying should any of your staff members be involved in sexual harassment.
Strengthen your human resources policies and adequately cover sexual harassment including student interns. Conduct regular trainings and awareness for all staff including student interns. At the end of attachment, conduct exit interviews and find out whether any sexual harassment took place and take remedial action.
For risk managers, your major risks are no longer coming from transactional activities…reputational risks are taking centre stage. What is it that can damage your reputation? Review your risk strategies and risk registers. Ask yourselves what if your boss is published on front pages of newspapers with student intern sexual harassment issues? What if one of your managers has a sex tap leak?
This calls for strong ethical behaviour and organisations should invest heavily in ethics trainings and awareness. If you are involved in an illicit sexual affair with students, you are destroying their lives and also the reputation of the company. It’s a matter of when before former students start openly talking about this practice, naming and shaming those involved and opening a can of worms that will send the value of many balance sheets tumbling down!
