dignity: harassment and discrimination :
Avenues of assistance

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1 G&D strongly recommends that Centers establish avenues of assistance at every duty station for staff who may be experiencing harassment. These avenues of assistance should be widely publicized through posters, intranet pages and induction programs.

2 When a staff member is harassed, her/his first questions are likely to be:

• “Was what I experienced harassment?”
• “What should I do?”
• “Whom can I go to for advice and assistance?”

3 “Read the policy manual” is not an adequate answer to any of these questions, no matter how well the policy manual is worded. Victims need human contact, preferably with someone who is familiar with the Center’s policies and practices for dealing with harassment.

4 Consequently each Center needs a contingency plan for every duty station that provides for all foreseeable aspects of harassment. In particular, this avenues-of-assistance contingency plan should answer the following management questions:

• “If one of our staff members is harassed at our duty station at X, what should she/he do?”
• “What resources does our Center have in place to provide prompt assistance for the victim?”

It is not sufficient to assume that the line management chain will handle the matter effectively. After all, the victim’s harasser may be part of that management chain.

Components of an “avenues of assistance” contingency plan
5 A good avenues of assistance contingency plan will have (but will not necessarily be limited to) the following features:

• one or more Local Harassment Advisors;
• a hotline (telephone access) to Center HR;
• documented information about harassment;
• access to professional counseling.

Local Harassment Advisors
6 A Local Harassment Advisor would be a ready source of advice to a staff member about harassment. She/he should possess the following qualities:

• confidentiality;
• empathy;
• being non-judgmental;
• impartiality;
• knowledge of the Center’s practices and policies for preventing and stopping harassment;
• effective communication skills; and, ideally,
• basic counseling skills

7 The Local Harassment Advisor has to:

• remain neutral;
• collect information;
• be sensitive;
• inform the victim of the Center’s policy and practices both for informal resolution, if appropriate, and formal complaint;
• reassure the victim about their rights and responsibilities;
• reassure the victim of confidentiality;
• advise the victim to record information about events and actions.

8 Most importantly, the Local Harassment Advisor has to be conscious of her/his responsibility to refer the victim on within the Center’s management structure, i.e. to the victim’s line manager (or other senior manager) and the HR Manager. The Local Harassment Advisor must avoid becoming personally involved to the extent of taking on roles that are more appropriately handled by the line manager and/or HR Manager.

A hotline to Center HR
9 The hotline to Center HR serves essentially to provide the victim with direct access to the HR Manager and a specified alternative contact person for harassment matters. The alternative contact may not necessarily be one of the HR staff; it may be, for example, the Director of Corporate Services.

10 The hotline would not ordinarily be a dedicated phone line. Rather, it would be achieved by:
(a) assuring telephone number/s to call are readily available (e.g. posting them on posters, etc), and
(b) putting in place an arrangement to assure that a staff member who requests access to the hotline is immediately provided with a telephone in a confidential environment.

Documented advice
11 While the first step with documentation is to get the policy finalized and published in the Center’s Personnel Policy Manual (or equivalent), some aspects may need to be made available separately, e.g. through specialized brochures dealing with different aspects of harassment or discrimination, through Web pages on the Center’s intranet and in different languages.

Access to professional counseling
12 “What would we do if one of our staff suffered serious sexual assault?” The answer, obviously, is not “wait until the investigation is concluded”. Urgent action is necessary. Ideally local, suitably qualified medical practitioners and professional counselors would have been identified beforehand. However, if such resources are not available locally, the Center needs to establish contingency plans for the duty station(s) concerned.

13 In addition, ongoing professional counseling may be needed on a less urgent basis, and/or for less serious incidents. Again, the Center needs to establish suitable arrangements before they are needed so support can be delivered in a timely way.

© CGIAR Gender & Diversity Program 2006