Thank you so much for coming today. Um It's a real honor to get to speak at this conference. Um And I really appreciate you taking the time to come to my talk on empowering employees to speak up with tech. So to introduce myself, I'm Lauren.So I'm from Toronto, Canada and I moved to London about a year and a half ago and I am incredibly passionate about gender. Ok? Tech, we have to make tech a safe place for everyone. A more fun fact about me is that I am absolutely obsessed with spin classes, but I don't yet know how to ride a bike, but I am working on it and don't you worry, I'll, I'll get it eventually. And for work, I am an engineer at Vault platform which is a London based start up where we are aiming to change workplace misconduct by empowering employees to speak up. So here's what we're going to talk about today. Firstly, we're gonna speak on what is workplace harassment um with my goal of trying to help us understand the different types of mistreatments that can happen at work. Next, I am going to share my story as someone that has both experienced and reported workplace misconduct before.

Um And then I'm gonna talk about what we can do about it. Um And I can share some of the technology that we're built, that he is pro so what is workplace harassment? So before I reported, I had no idea specifically what harassment and sexual harassment actually were and not knowing the definitions definitely made me feel more uncertain of myself and added to my feelings of self doubt. So even though I am not a lawyer, I am a mere software developer and I can't give you legal advice. What I want to do is give us some definitions that act as a starting point for us to educate ourselves. And because I'm based in London in the UK, I'm going to share UK based definitions. Uh but if you're not based in the UK, I hope that this just inspires you to go off and look up your local definition. So ac in the UK defines harassment as unwanted behavior that is related to a protected characteristic and we'll speak about protective characteristics in a moment. What's important to know is whether the behavior was intended or not. It might the person a hostile environment for that person.

It can be a serious one off incident or a pattern of behavior and it can be many different types of behaviors in person virtually, et cetera. And what's most important with harassment is the effect and perceptions of the recipient of the behavior. So I mentioned that harassment is unwanted behavior that's related to a protected characteristic. So in the UK, these are the characteristics that you're protected under the Equality Act. So these are things like age and race and disability, et cetera. And different examples of harassment at work are offensive comments about a team member's age. This would be on the protected characteristic of age. It would be rude comments about a colleague's disability that you overhear, even though that didn't happen to you individually as a witness of that behavior, you can report that to your employer. Another example could be a male, they put a female and there can be more subtle behaviors as well. Now because of my own experiences, I am going to focus a lot of this talk on sexual harassment. So I wanted to share the definition with you as well. So A CS in the UK define sexual harassment as unwanted behavior that is specifically related to a sexual nature. It can also be many different types of behaviors and it can be a one off or an ongoing pattern of behavior.

It is also the effect and perceptions of the recipient that matter most when it comes to sexual harassment. And in the UK, you can think of sexual harassment as just another type of harassment and the UK Equality Act will protect you from all of it. Different examples of sexual harassment include unwanted flirting, telling sexually offensive jokes, touching someone against their will. Sexual messages or images being sent to you or stored on computers or phones. And one thing to note is that what some people might tell you can, or even parts of company culture can still be sexual harassment if that behavior is unwanted and of a sexual nature. So I'm just going to pause for one moment, um, and ask you to please read the quotes on the screen and think about if you ever heard anything like this in your workplace before. So, unfortunately, yeah, unfortunately, all of these were direct quotes that were said to me when I decided to report the sexual harassment that I had experienced in my workplace. So I'm gonna share my story with you now, which is a very vulnerable thing for me to do, but I'm doing it with a very specific goal because when I went through this experience, part of what added to the devastation was the stigma around speaking about it.

And so and share it or other people know that they're not alone in these horrible experiences. So I do love being an engineer. I really do. I think there's nothing more empowering than getting to build something with my code. But often I'm the only woman engineer on all male engineering teams and it can feel quite lonely. But what I want to talk to you about today is for me when it became unsafe on one particular team before I joined Vault, the sexism was worse than anything I had experienced before. It started with much more subtle mansplaining my own code to me. And then it escalated and suddenly my dating life was constantly being brought up and made fun of. I remember at one point sitting with all the male engineers on my team and one of them said, hey guys, did you know Lawrence on Tinder? And then he said, which of these guys do you prefer? Referring to? My? It became unsafe for me. I was not being seen as an equal in this space. I was an object, someone to date, definitely not someone whose code you were gonna review that afternoon. And so when I said this is not funny because I was feeling incredibly uncomfortable. I was told Lauren, this is just boys chat. So now I'm doubting myself in this work environment and I'm being treated like I'm overreacting.

So this was awful and way too common, but it became unbearable for me when the popular male engineer on the team started sexually harassing me. I remember feeling completely shocked and disillusioned and just desperately not wanting this to be my reality. I remember that all I wanted to do over the next few weeks instead of feeling any sense of relief, the only thing that I felt was way worse because this individual was a very popular, crucial part of the team and everyone seemed to like him. So every single time I would be on a call and hearing his name, every time I would see his name on Slack or every single time I saw him around the office, I felt shame and discomfort. And I finally decided to come forward to my management. When I realized that moving on was not going to work for me. Very briefly, when my complaint uh was made, my management appeared grateful and told me that they would protect me. But in reality, the reporting process that followed could not have been further from that. There were many aspects of the reporting process that made me feel alone and powerless and I wanna talk through them all together. Firstly, the process lasted several intense months with no sense of clear timelines. I was also introduced to many different people from hr and around the business to try to manage the case. And every single time they would ask me to repeat all the details over and over again.

So it felt like I was endlessly reliving every single moment of this trauma. I also asked for my identity to be protected and I was told that it would be, but then due to some miscommunication with the management, this did not happen. And once that mistake was made, the damage was irreparable. I had been hired to code, but my entire job became focused on this case. I lived and worked in constant anxiety of what was going to happen next, which new hr person was going to reach out to me and on which. But the email sometimes the day as well as who knew in my organization since my identity had not been protected. Eventually, when my case did conclude, my harasser admitted all of his behavior and my grievance was upheld. However, unfortunately, my harasser's only consequence was to redo his online training. The whole experience felt like having the carpet pulled out from under my feet because the system that I had trusted completely failed to protect me, I did eventually leave that role and I feel incredibly grateful to have had the privilege to do so. But I know that I'm not alone in these experiences. In fact, one in two women in the UK in the US and Canada have all experienced sexual harassment at work and women of color disproportionately experience more harm in the workplace. This is everywhere is not talked about in.

It's also estimated that 75% of workplace harassment goes unreported and this is for a multitude of reasons including some not knowing exactly what harassment, sexual harassment are. But there's also a real lack of trust in companies and institutions to do anything about it.

The reality is though that it's difficult to take action unless there are better reporting mechanisms and more trust in how cases are being handled. Ok? I'm gonna ask that everyone takes a deep breath all together. We just amazing. I appreciate it. Thank you. This is heavy stuff.

It's really heavy stuff and I think it's amazing that we get to talk about it today and I really appreciate you being here to listen and I want to focus the rest of the talk on what you can do about it. So I wanna share how to handle problems at work, how to prepare when it comes to reporting and the tech that we're working all this. I'm gonna start with the absolute worst piece of advice that I've ever received. So the worst piece of advice that I had received is from an individual. After I shared my story to them, they responded, Lauren, this is just something women have to experience at work. I am here to tell you today that that is completely not true. It is your right to work in a safe environment and it is your employer's duty to ensure this one thing that employers can do to help keep their employees safe is to have very clear policies on harassment and other forms of misconduct. These policies can include specific examples of behaviors that are unacceptable as well as how it's going to be handled and the consequences for those behaviors. And of course, employers have to actually follow through on their policies. But even in the case that there are is no policy, your employer still has a legal duty of care to protect you at work.

If you, if you're comfortable, you can first try to raise it informally, which can be speaking to the individual about their behavior or someone senior at your company. And if you don't, which is completely understandable. And I have been there and you want to raise a formal grievance, you can do that as well and your company should have policies outlining their grievance procedures as well. One important tool for you. If you're going through an experience like this is to document everything, keep a record of all of your experiences in case you do decide to report it later. This is dates times details as well as the emotional impact. Because what we talked about it is the effect on the recipient of the behavior that matters most. You can also include any sort of evidence. So email screenshots, whatever you've got and at vault, we've created three products to help you through this process. Firstly, we have the vault mobile app which allows employees to speak up internally. We all which is a web. So it turns out to members of the public and finally the resolution hub, which is a web based enterprise platform for hr to resolve their cases. And what I wanted to do is share my favorite pieces of the tech that I feel I could have used when I reported starting with the app. So when I reported, I did not have an easy way to document the details of my case.

I definitely was completely unaware of whatever my company's policies were on harassment and most painfully, my identity was not protected at Vault. The main reporting channel is an app and it acts as a digital diary for you to record the details of your report and as you record details, time stamps are added which can increase your credibility. The reports remain entirely on your phone. Hr has no access to them until you are ready to report on your own terms. These are also direct. This can give you all the information that you need when you're going through that scary experience. And finally, in the app, you can report anonymously and maintain your anonymity as you continue to do two way messaging with hr as your case is resolved, this can completely eliminate any sort of human error and put the control in your hands of protecting your identity. Next step is the audit log, which has a special place in my heart because I built it. But this audit log, I feel addresses the problem that I spoke about where I had to speak to many different people from hr constantly having to retell all the different details and traumatic details of my case. This is a piece of tech I feel could help with it.

What it is is it's an automated timeline of all of the events and updates that happened on a report so that can take the burden off of the victim to have to hold and repeat all of these details. And it also will enable collaboration for different hr s comment on the report. But as the case is resolved, the last piece of tech that I wanted to share is called Go together. So in the vault app, you have three different ways to report. You can report in name anonymously or using Go together and how it works is go together will only submit a report if another person in your organization submits a report, naming the same specific individual on their report. So this is a piece of tech that can actually provide power in numbers. Generally women and people of color are not going to hold as much power in their workplaces. But with a piece of technology like go together, you don't have to go it alone. So I wanted to wrap things up with some key takeaways. Um Firstly, tying it back to the absolute worst piece of advice I ever received to be very clear. Harassment is not something women just have to deal with your employer care to ins work and no matter how isolating this can be, you are not alone in this.

I know that when I feel isolated, the only thing I want to do is crawl up into a ball and disappear. But I've learned that by avoiding my shame. It unfortunately gross. And I don't know if there are any Berne Brown fans out there today, but I am a big fan of hers. And in daring greatly, Berne Brown writes, shame derives its power from being unspeakable. If we can share our story with someone that responds with empathy and understanding, then shame cannot survive. I highly encourage you to use your support system if you're going through an experience like this as well as additional local resources because they are there to help you.

And lastly thank you so much for listening to this talk. Um I've put my contact details, my Twitter and my email because I would love nothing more than to answer your questions and to talk to you more about this and support. However, and also we're hot. So if anything that I've said is of interest do get in touch. Um But yes, thank you so so much. I really appreciate it.