Employers have been urged to limit alcohol at work parties to reduce the risk of inappropriate behaviour and harassment.
According to the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), one in three managers has seen harassment or staff behaving inappropriately at work social events.
The poll of 1,000 managers, seen by the BBC, found that women (33%) were more likely than men (26%) to have witnessed improper conduct.
The poll suggested there was demand for more alcohol-free work events, especially among people aged 16-34. Overall, two in five (42%) respondents said work parties should be organised around activities that do not involve alcohol.
Alcohol at work parties
How to conduct a workplace investigation
CMI chief executive Ann Francke told the BBC that managers have a responsibility to ensure safeguards against inappropriate behaviour.
“That might mean adding additional activities alongside alcohol, limiting the amount of drinks available per person or ensuring that people who are drinking too much are prevented from acting inappropriately towards others,” she said.
The poll was conducted following allegations of harassment and sexual misconduct at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), including from one woman who alleged she was raped at a CBI boat party in 2019.
The CBI apologised to staff and members in an open letter last month, which stated that it did not put enough preventative measures in place to protect employees from harm.
Tesco chair John Allan has also been accused of inappropriate behaviour, including touching the bottom of a senior member of Tesco staff at the company’s annual general meeting in 2022, as well as inappropriately touching a CBI staff member at its annual dinner in 2019, when he was CBI president. Allan has denied all but one of the allegations – making a comment about a CBI employee’s appearance that she considered offensive.
Tesco told the Guardian that Allan’s conduct has never been the subject of a complaint during his tenure as chair of Tesco.
Now, the CBI has appointed ethics consultancy Principia Advisory to help overhaul its operations and organisational culture. The CBI has suspended day-to-day operations pending an extraordinary general meeting on 6 June, at which it is expected to outline a new strategy.
Commenting on the appointment of the ethics advisors, Jim Moore, employee relations expert at HR consultants Hamilton Nash, said: “Bringing a team of ethics advisors into your workplace is a tacit admission that your business has morally lost its way. The CBI has suffered a systematic failure of awareness by management, and only by examining its HR processes and how they are implemented will it have any hope of surviving.
“Recent bullying allegations in Parliament point to the dangers of letting a toxic culture grow and fester in the workplace. Inappropriate banter is one of the most obvious symptoms of a toxic culture. Playful teasing between willing participants of equal power and status is fine, but an issue arises with nasty, edgy, sarcastic or discriminatory banter that ‘punches down’.
“When management turns a blind eye to this – or worse, participates – it can create an acid bath of a corrosive work environment.
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“Employers have a legal obligation to take reasonable steps to prevent staff being bullied or harassed. A toxic member of staff may be personally liable for their behaviour, but the employer may be vicariously liable too.”
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