Abstract
This paper aims to examine what impedes Human Resource Professionals’ (HRPs) ability to enact procedural justice in resolving complaints of sexual harassment by identifying the challenges and difficulties HRPs encounter in practice. We conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 35 HRPs from 30 companies in Sri Lanka, employing a qualitative research approach. We found that HRPs face numerous challenges in enacting procedural justice. They struggle with competing demands to legally safeguard the company while also being fair to the parties concerned. We also found that complainants, other parties connected to the complaint, or observers can perceive HRPs as unfair even when they adhere to procedural justice principles. Understanding these challenges will help address some of the loopholes in complaint handling processes and highlight the need for interventions such as training to mitigate or eliminate the challenges HRPs face in taking fairer actions.
Highlights
Human Resource Professionals hold the key responsibility of preventing, combating, and handling sexual harassment in organisations
This paper explores the challenges Human Resource Professionals (HRPs) face in upholding perceived justice and enacting procedural justice when handling complaints of sexual harassment. We explore these challenges by nesting the actions and inactions of HRPs within procedural justice principles under organisational justice literature
We identified that enacting procedural justice is not an easy task for the HRPs interviewed, especially when facing many challenges
Summary
Human Resource Professionals hold the key responsibility of preventing, combating, and handling sexual harassment in organisations. Amidst the numerous activities they engage in this regard, such as developing and implementing anti-sexual harassment policies, training and development, and providing support and protection to victims, investigating and resolving complaints of sexual harassment fairly and justly remain a primary responsibility (Goldberg et al, 2018). They need to take complaints of sexual harassment seriously, investigate those complaints without delay, and take disciplinary actions against perpetrators, which would contribute to zero-tolerance for sexual harassment in organisations (Goldberg et al, 2018; Hennekam & Bennett, 2017). Employees will be reluctant to make formal complaints if they feel that complaining is futile (Freedman-Weiss et al, 2020)
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