Please investigate, not necessarily believe. Innocent til proven guilty still has some place in this world..
That being said, kudos to anyone courageous enough to speak the truth even at the risk of vilification.
That being said, kudos to anyone courageous enough to speak the truth even at the risk of vilification.
A well-run company will have proper procedures, processes in place to deal with work place issues.
Management and all staff will also be required to take training on a continuous basis.
Professionally managed organizations don't walk around "believing" this or that or spouting off "innocent until proven guilty" and such
:)
This is miserable. Unless the definition of sexual harassment changes every 6 months, you should not be forcing employees to retake these training sessions.
Here's a relevant scenario: I'm a man, I hold a managerial position and I have to choose between hiring another man or a woman as a one of my direct-reports. Let's say both contenders have the same qualifications, they're both equally fit for the job, but then, I, as a manager, start thinking that if I hire the woman she will then possibly think of filing a sexual harassment complaint down the line in order to take my job. Remember the "believe" part, which means that the sexual complaint doesn't even need to be backed by anything real, because most of the times after the complaint has been made public the damage is already done for me, as a male manager, no matter what the investigation finds (if it manages to find anything). So I choose the man over the woman as my direct-report.
The more general point would be, be aware of the second order effects of changes you promote. For example, revocation of innocent-until-proven-guilty would almost certainly reduce the chances of people who have blown the whistle of being hired again, as they would present a much higher risk to prospective companies, regardless of whether their claims were true. The fact that they would blow the whistle at all would serve as a huge red flag.
Of course, I don't actually know the incidence of sexual harassment at workplaces, and have no idea whether false reports are even an issue. I strongly doubt they are, but I can somewhat understand male managers fear of them, given that they can ruin careers and marriages. As much as sexual harassment is a problem, I don't think assumption of guilt is an appropriate or long-term effective solution.
Anyone accused of sexual harassment should have a chance to give their side of the story and an investigation should be performed, but the company should act based on what HR believes happened, not just what HR can prove happened. Neither the accuser nor the accused has the presumption of being right or the burden of proof.
Also note that it is in general impossible to prove that something did not happen, as opposed to proving it did, as things that did not happen have no evidence of their occurrence by definition...
This is incorrect. "Innocent until proven guilty" and "preponderance of evidence" are not two levels on one scale. They are distinct legal principles which can be applied at the same time or separately. Both, however, relate to the burden of proof and differ between criminal and civil trials, which is probably the source of the confusion.
Crudely: one standard is about what happens without sufficient evidence, the other is about how much evidence is sufficient.
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The burden of proof is a general concept of which party in a trial must prove their claims, and to what standard. "Presumption of innocence" is one possible answer to "which party", while "preponderance of evidence" is a possible answer to "what standard".
The party bearing the burden of proof for an issue is the party which must provide evidence. Simply: if everyone at the trial rests without offering any evidence, whoever bears the burden of proof loses. In criminal trials, this is the presumption of innocence you mention. In civil trials, the matter is more complicated, but in effect the plaintiff bears the (initial) burden. In asset forfeiture cases, infamously, the government bears the burden in the initial trial (against the asset), but the owner bears the burden of proof as a third-party claimant if they want their property back.
(It's emphatically not true that neither side has the burden of proof in civil trials. There is always a burden of proof when a claim is being made, to determine what happens if no evidence is provided. However, civil cases frequently involve affirmative defenses, in which each party bears the burden of proof for the claims made by that party. Both, not neither.)
The standard of proof, meanwhile, is the hurdle which must be cleared by whoever bears the burden of proof. It's how convincing their claim must be to be accepted. In civil cases, yes, this is a "preponderance of evidence", interpreted as the claim being more likely than not. In criminal cases, this is "beyond a reasonable doubt" - that's on the same scale as preponderance. Other standards exist outside of trial settings: in various contexts US law employs standards like "some evidence" and "reasonable suspicion".
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I'm not (just) being pedantic here. If we're talking about borrowing a legal standard for deciding against someone in a dispute, I think it's very important that we're clear on what we mean.
It's possible to vary both the size and placement of the burden. We could believe the accuser (burden on the accused), but hold the accused to a mere "some credible evidence" standard for their defense. We could believe the accused and demand evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt", or lower that to "preponderance of evidence", or even further. Or we could even use some standard not borrowed from the courts.
But right now, almost no one clarifies what they mean. The results of moving the burden will be very different from the results of lessening the burden, and it's important to understand what we're proposing.
b. Because the costs of a false negative is forcing someone to continue working for/with someone they clearly feel uncomfortable around.
(compare to crimes, where it's much easier to protect the victim even without any sanctions against the accused)
Innocent until proven guilty is the standard for depriving someone of their freedom, not their job. If the harassment rises to the level of sexual assault, it's the standard the prosecutor will use. Otherwise, it's irrelevant in the context of sexual harassment.
Take measures based as though the complaints are made in good faith.
If you assume them true then you would act as if the investigation has already taken place, and determined that they are true. If you're going to act like that why would you need an investigation?
If complaints or concerns are raised in good faith then you have no need to mistrust the representation and instead can look to the facts and context of the situation.
Believing someone is not important, understanding the sequence of events that led to them speaking up is.
Responding as if someone is acting in good faith means that
- you believe that
- they believe that
- they are true
On the other hand, if you believe someone it means that
- you believe that
- they are true
Using "believe" to mean the first situation only makes everyone's meaning less clear.
That should give you pause when you claim (incorrectly) that a such a narrow usage of language is correct.
All three points lead to different actions and the one in the middle seems to be the most appropriate.
Which is to say, do more than just investigate. Take action as though the complaints are true, although not necessarily all the action you would take if you knew the complaint to be exactly factual.
You should always investigate, even if (to borrow your formatting)
you believe that they believe that their statements are false
and are making a bad faith accusation. It would still be correct to investigate if that was your belief. If you believed that the accusations were entirely factual, then perhaps the immediate step would be to fire someone. But if instead you simply believe that the person is accusing someone of something in good faith, something has already gone wrong and there is a problem. Even if no one did anything wrong.
To put it in terms that might be more familiar, every complaint is an incident and should involve a (blameless) postmortem that asks how the system failed such that someone felt the need to complain. And action should be taken in response. Sometimes, the system failed in such a way that it allowed a malicious actor to do a bad thing, and that malicious actor should be reprimanded, independent of the postmortem.
Believe the accuser when writing the postmortem, and begin incident response as soon as possible. Investigate fully before reprimanding a potential malicious actor.
What's that supposed to mean?
Do not believe every word anyone says as the absolute truth of an event. Evidence, corroboration, attempts to be objective -- these are all the rights of the accused.
Believe the complainant but do not assume they are correct. Our memories are the movies based on real events.
That's sounds like giving accusers too much power, especially if it leads to firing. It's not as if people don't lie.
He says on the same line.
You don't have to assume truth, just believe they mean their account, you assume good faith. Believe them and allow that belief to start the process of uncovering what the truth is.
There's a reason Listen & Believe is a thing and it's not because anyone is saying "you should have unquestioned faith in what someone says".
"Believe" has always implied to me "understands to be true". How can I believe anything based only on the words of a single person? (Except trivial things like believing that they said something to you)
I have primarily heard the phrase "listen and believe" used by people who think it is impossible for certain kinds of people to understand the experiences of other kinds of people.
Following that argument, the claim is that if you assert an experience I am not capable of understanding then I must accept it, for I have no grounds to refute it.
This has always seemed like unquestioned faith to me, for I think any argument should be able to stand on it's own merit. Maybe I am missing some nuance to the argument, or perhaps there is more going on, but in any case 'believe' seems to be the wrong word.
I'm using the usage that social and case workers use when they talk about believing victims.
So... frankly, I don't really care what HN thinks of the usage.
Note, again, that nothing you said is counter to the "good faith" usage. You're assuming they are speaking the truth as they see it. That's all.
That's how any investigation that involves eye witness testimony works.
It's also the recommended practice for improving reporting and investigation so, again, don't really care what HN thinks about the term: the experts in the field recommended it.