Stephanie Prevost on Preventing Sexual Harassment by Clients

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In this episode of Lehigh University’s College of Business ilLUminate podcast, we're talking with Stephanie Prevost about her study on why professional firms need to focus on preventing sexual harassment by clients. 

Prevost is a professor of practice of law at Lehigh's College of Business. Before joining Lehigh, she served as the COO/general counsel of a boutique investment advisory firm focused on utility-scale renewable financing. Prevost, who is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, has also held legal and business roles at a large law firm and in the banking industry.

She spoke with Jack Croft, host of the ilLUminate podcast. Listen to the podcast here and subscribe and download Lehigh Business on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Below is an edited excerpt from that conversation. Read the complete podcast transcript [PDF]. 

Jack Croft: What are some of the particular challenges for professional firms trying to prevent sexual harassment of their employees by clients? How does sexual harassment by clients differ from sexual harassment in the workplace?

Stephanie Prevost: One, it's harder to understand the scope of the issue. People don't report sexual harassment internally at a company as much as we would like them to. And the lack of reporting is even more prevalent when someone's being harassed by a client. 

There's also this factor of there's a lack of accountability or at least a belief that there's a lack of accountability with clients. If there's a third-party harasser, there's a sense that what can we really do about it, right? … I think addressing any type of sexual harassment can be challenging, but there are some challenges with addressing it when it's by a third party and in particular by a client in a professional environment.

Croft: What distinguishes that relationship between client and professional firm in terms of kind of the-- I don't know if I want to say the balance of power, but kind of that equation of the relationship between the company and especially the employee who's handling the client and the client if the client is making or is paying a large sum of money for the services?

Prevost: There is a real imbalance of power, potentially. And it's one of the reasons why I focused this sort of research and I'm continuing to focus the research on high-value client industries, like law, consulting, finance, because these types of clients, it's not quite so straightforward. 

If you compare it to a restaurant, for example, the sexual harassment that can occur to someone working in a restaurant is, yes, awful and severe, as well, but the impact on the business itself, when you tell that client to leave, the person coming into your restaurant, may not be as impactful as at a law firm when it's one of your biggest clients that potentially is a huge revenue generator. 

They do hold more power, and it does make it harder to address the issue for an employer that wants to meet the needs of their employees, but also needs to make sure that they're an ongoing, successful company that may not have the flexibility to just get rid of that client to terminate the relationship.

Croft: And I wonder, given that imbalance of power and that relationship between very wealthy clients often and professional firms, such as you mentioned, law and finance and such, why do you think that the sexual harassment by clients has received far less public attention and research so far than sexual harassment in the workplace?

Prevost: I think to some extent, it's because it's even more hidden, right? I mean, sexual harassment has been a problem for a long time. And we've had a relatively recent movement with #MeToo and sort of other evolutions in addressing sexual harassment within sort of internally committed sexual harassment within the workplace. 

Sexual harassment by clients can be just as pervasive and damaging to someone's career, but it's even more hidden. The reporting, we're seeing some evidence through the research, it's being reported even less than other types of sexual harassment because of these imbalances in power and the potential impacts on someone's career. 

There's also not as many women in these spaces where you can have these one-on-one or small-group interactions with clients. Obviously, internally at a company, there may be a lot more women who are exposed to harassment, but in these spaces, there's just not as many women. And that also does impact the reporting as well. 

And I do think the fact that it's harder to address, it's harder for an employer to address, is impacting the research and the awareness we all have of it. Sort of there's less of a willingness to talk about it because we don't really have good paths to resolution when the problem arises.

Croft: Ideally, the harm that sexual harassment does to a company's employees should be incentive enough for them to want to address the problem and eradicate it. But … I think there's another one, too, which is that there are liability issues for the companies, for the employers regarding harassment by clients. And can you talk a little about what some of those main issues are?

Prevost: Sure. And I'm not sure that all employers or people in leadership positions understand that there is actual legal liability. Clearly, we've established and it should be well known that you have liability if your own employees are harassing other employees, especially in situations where there's an imbalance of power. 

But there's also legal liability for employers if the employees are exposed or being harassed by third parties, which includes clients. So the employers can face liability if there's a hostile work environment and the company is failing to try to take reasonable steps to prevent that harassment. You're right, though, and I appreciate what you said at the beginning of that question, that beyond just the legal liability, there should be this incentive to want to protect your employees from this type of harm.

But it is important to recognize also that, yes, this good faith efforts of the employers, also, if you have hesitation as a leader, which I hope no one would, but if they do, there is actual legal liability that you can face.

I think it's also important to note that in the past few years, there was legislation passed by Congress that traditionally, historically employers have been able to mandate arbitration, which keeps disputes outside of our legal system. Mandate arbitration even in cases of sexual harassment. And that adds to the issue of people not talking about this. Legislation was passed that now employees can opt out of that arbitration if it's a sexual harassment claim. The employers don't have that ability to sort of keep these types of claims quiet. 

Other liability that they would need to think about is, "If I'm not addressing this, if I'm not thinking about this, one, we could face legal liability, two, maybe we're even successful in defending ourselves, but if this claim comes out in the public, you also are facing reputational harm, which can damage your company, damage your ability to recruit women, qualified women, and others, too, of course. And it can impact your relationships with your clients just from the fact that these types of claims are getting out there." 

So I think there's potential negative impacts for the employers. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of negative impacts for the employees as well. But when employers are thinking about how to approach this, you really need to take that broad view of this can have impacts on your business pretty broadly.

Croft: The core of the study that you've done is you have four recommendations on how companies can address sexual harassment by clients and, hopefully, eradicate it. If you could briefly introduce the four main recommendations you're offering for companies.

Prevost: One, exploration and also discussion with your employees. And it's benchmarking, which in this context, I'm talking about really looking internally, trying to figure out, "Where are our employees at when it comes to sexual harassment by clients? Are they willing to talk to us about it?" 

I recommend setting up confidential surveys. It'll depend on the company, right? But setting up some sort of survey or process where you can get real data about what's happening and what your employees are experiencing, you have to do it. You have to conduct that type of survey in a way that garners trust from your employees. And again, being cognizant of historical issues, potentially, at your company can be challenging, right? 

And then implementing policies that explicitly call out this type of harassment, … but I think that that's really important to be specific about what we're talking about. Training, I talk about in my research and what I've found from other research is, bystander intervention training is really important to try to effectively address this. And training is required by law. So that's also important to recognize. 

And then this is all internal-facing. So my fourth recommendation is really outward-facing because, again, we're dealing with a third party. So trying to use our contracts that we have with our clients to address this type of harassment in a way that can, hopefully, prevent it and at the very least provide us pathways to address it if it occurs.

A Note from Stephanie Prevost on Her Research

I’m conducting research into sexual harassment by clients in client-focused professional industries, including among others, law, finance, and consulting. I’ve created a survey to learn more about observations and experiences of sexual harassment by clients and invite you to complete it. It should only take between 5-8 minutes and is confidential.

Please share with others who currently or previously worked in client-focused professional industries so we can expand on this important research. Contact me at stp321@lehigh.edu with any questions or if you would like more information.

Additionally, if you're interested in the topic, you can read my recently published article online regarding sexual harassment by clients.