I recently shared a blog post talking about the fact that sexual harassment and ‘gender issues’ are still a thing in the workplace further to a conversation I overheard in a branch of Costa. This is the conversation I overheard, as shared in my blog post It Is Still Happening;
“It was all going well until that stupid woman decided she wanted to get pregnant; now she’s never going to be any good at working for us” – she said!
Later he said; “I’m just fed up with dealing with all this crap; so what some guy in the office touched you up…. can’t she just deal with it herself??? Why the hell do I have to get involved… just because I’m her boss? Grow some balls and deal with it yourself!”
I had lots of feedback that if I wanted things to change then it made sense for me to tell the company I heard it; so that is what I did and the response was certainly interesting.
Here is the main of the email I sent;
“I am sending you a link to a blog post that I feel is necessary that you read; in the blog post I talk about a loud conversation I overheard in Costa just a few weeks ago and I strongly feel you need to be aware of this because the 2 people talking were from your recruitment agency and they were managers / areas managers of different branches. I was horrified at the conversation and wrote this blog post about it http://www.creativecontent.company/ItIsStillHappening.html – I have not mentioned your company name, but feel if you are not made aware then nothing can change.“
From the manager at the Leicester branch of this recruitment company;
“Please remove all *company name* email addresses and contacts from you mailing list.”
From a Recruitment Consultant at the Cambridge branch of this recruitment company;
“Hi hazel, Thank you for your message, I’m really sorry if you had a bad time with *company name*. Kind Regards C****”
This shows me that either the employees of this recruitment company don’t actually care about what their employees are saying, that they agree with the comments made, or they couldn’t be bother to read the blog I had sent them even though I mentioned the conversation was worrying.
While I would not name and shame this company publicly, I am happy to recommend other recruiters if you are looking to employ or to be employed.
*** Since This Conversation ***
I then received a lovely phone call from a lady at the Peterborough branch who apologised that this conversation took place, let alone was overheard and she was hoping to deal with it. This was the exact response I hoped for and while I hoped things would change, I have since spoken to one of the people in the conversation and this will not change; one of the people in the conversation was the MD.
