Voicing their complaints? The silence of students working in retail and hospitality and sexual harassment from customers

Abstract

This article examines how employees respond to sexual harassment from customers in the workplace. Employing a qualitative method to facilitate a rich understanding, this study uses exploratory interviews with university students working in retail and hospitality in Australia to examine their experiences of customer-perpetrated harassment, the constraints they face in exercising ‘employee voice’, factors that structure and perpetuate ‘employee silence’, and the actions that employees take in this situation. Preliminary findings indicate that the employees face difficulty responding to customer-perpetrated sexual harassment due to the constraints of contextual factors, including working conditions, social norms, and the nature of sexual harassment as a workplace problem. While silence is the norm, some employees use informal voice, which has a limited impact because of the power differentials between employees and managers. Other employees use informal coping strategies, which this article coins as ‘buffering’. This research is important for understanding the experience of vulnerable employees and for providing insight into potential barriers to eliminate sexual harassment from customers in the workplace.

Keywords:

• customer sexual harassment
• employee silence
• employee voice
• retail and hospitality

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura Good

Laura Good graduated with Honours in Work and Organisational Studies at the University Business School in 2013. She is now a Research Assistant at the Centre for Workplace Leadership at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests include employee voice, anti-discrimination and the future of work.

Rae Cooper

Dr Rae Cooper is Associate Professor in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School. Her work across employment relations and women and work areas is widely published in Australia and internationally. She is currently researching flexible work and flexible careers; collective bargaining in Australian and the Fair Work Act, 2009; and care workers and vulnerable labour.