It involves enforcing a strict structure, and punishments according to the ‘tier’ of violation

Today, the startup world in Southeast Asia was rocked by a blog post from MaGIC Founding CEO Cheryl Yeoh detailing allegations of sexual assault against 500 Startups Co-founder Dave McClure.

While the news is important and demands coverage, a significant chunk of the post is actually dedicated to fixing the problem, outlying a plan, and finishing with a call to action.

The plan is great, and full of both specific details and ways to accomplish the tasks. But, if forced, it can be boiled down to one sentence:

Take corporate sexual harassment seriously, and set up a framework that proves the company is serious about fixing the culture.

Yeoh provided tangible steps to achieving this goal. So, let’s go through them:

Clearly define the different levels of inappropriateness in a formal company harassment policy

This section is further broken-down into four categories, each with increasingly serious punishments for violating the rules.

Level A: Verbal or gender harassment: This section references two distinctly different behaviours that would fall under a similar type of harassment.

Making unwanted and inappropriate comments that make the other person uncomfortable. In the case of Susan Fowler at Uber, a male colleague kept using his ‘open relationship’ to hint at a desire to have sex with her.
Making sexist comments or crude jokes that make fellow employees feel uncomfortable.

Level B: Direct sexual propositions or sexual behaviour

When the verbal advances are no longer cloaked, the behaviour has moved on to level B. Examples of this is propositioning someone to head back to their hotel room, ignore declined invitations for a date or asking if the person would consider sleeping together.

Level C: Sexual bribery or coercion

Promising a reward for a sexual act. Maybe it means a promotion, funding or signing a deal, but the quid pro quo involves sexual behavior.
The opposite also falls into this category. Demanding sexual activity as a punishment. This kind of activity includes keeping a secret, threatening suspension, firing or withholding a promotion

Level D: Sexual imposition

This means advances of a sexual nature. It includes acts like grabbing someone’s behind at work, forceful touching or aggressive, unwanted, kissing.

Why this is important: It sets clear lines of demarkation for reporting incidents. It also takes away vagueness and puts clear punishments for violations based on a tier system.

Create a safe channel for reporting sexual harassment

A hotline channel is the suggested method for reporting sexual harassment cases.

For startups, this is a bit unrealistic, but the actual hotline is not what is important. The point is to ensure the company has an internal ability to make complaints. Importantly, the complaints are sent directly to someone they know will take it seriously.

The purpose of the hotline is not just to flush-out seriously bad behaviour. It also helps decision-makers create data points, so that the boss can see a trend of inappropriate behaviour they may not see in person.

Furthermore, Yeoh suggested people learn from her mistake and write everything down immediately after the incident happens. Later, when trying to recall the events, it will be crucial to have a written reference.

Train the VCs and Founders

In the case of VCs, it is not just about training the Partners and staff. It is also about taking the initiative to train the companies and Founders, many of whom are fairly new to the industry.

As Yeoh points out, sexual harassment in the tech industry is a problem, which means it requires a heightened awareness in regards of training and education.

It probably means pointing-out behaviour that some may think is “no big deal” — but then making it clear that they don’t get to make that decision.

Travis Kalanick did not resign because he was directly accused of sexual harassment. He resigned because he failed to educate and train his company, which resulted in a toxic environment that eventually exploded.

Training and education is essential.

Conduct surveys

People may be hesitant to report instances of sexual harassment for fear of consequence. If a company or VC firm is proactive and conducts frequent, anonymous, surveys, they may be able to detect a problem early enough to fix it.

It builds an environment of proactive instead of reactive decision making.

My very-small thought

People may very well point to the last two weeks as a turning point in the tech industry. But, as the community calls for change, building a plan like the one outlined by Yeoh (or another idea that makes a positive impact) does make a difference.

It may not seem so because it won’t create a giant wave.

But, these are the little changes that can be quietly implemented and actually help fix the current climate.

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