Survey looks at response to work incidents

Fewer than half of all Scots who witnessed sexual harassment at work stepped in to help, a new survey suggested.

More than a fifth (22.9%) of those who had seen someone being harassed did not believe it was their place to intervene, while 18.2% were too afraid to act.

The figures were included in new research by Censuswide Scotland which suggested that more than a quarter of adults – and more than a third of women – had been the victim of sexual harassment at work.

A total of 11.9% of people had experienced this on multiple occasions, with a further

Fewer than half said that they had intervened

14.2% having one incident.

For women, those proportions rose to 15% and 18.1% – significantly higher than the 5.4% and 6.3% of men who said they had been sexually harassed on more than one occasion or one time only.

Meanwhile, almost a fifth of people (19.3%) said they had witnessed more than one incident of harassment, with 17.8% having seen behaviour of this type once.

However, when asked if they had intervened, fewer than half (43.3%) said they had done so.

Meanwhile, fewer than a third (32.5%) of those who had suffered harassment had raised the issue with their employer.

The most common reason for not doing so was they “didn’t think it was worth the hassle”, which was cited by 29.7% of those who had been harassed.

Meanwhile, 20.9% said they were too scared to raise a grievance with their boss, 15.3% did not think they would be believed, and 12.3% were “too embarrassed”. suffered