I recently finished reading a book that I received for Christmas – Winter Solstice by Elin Hilderbrand. (Spoiler alert: I’m going to write about an incident that takes place in the novel.)

One of the characters, Jennifer, is an interior designer who is decorating a new apartment for a wealthy male client named Coke. Needing to see the space that she’s going to decorate, she meets with him alone at night.

He offers her a drink of scotch, which she reluctantly accepts, and then he tries to kiss her.

“Jennifer is now very, very sorry she agreed to this meeting and even sorrier that she wore such a seductive outfit. The music changes to John Mayer singing the world’s sexiest song. It’s then Jennifer realizes that Coke intentionally laid a trap and Jennifer has fallen right into it.”

She tells him no, and she leaves.

Then she questions her own actions. Should she have accepted the drink? Should she have worn the skirt and boots? Did she give off unintentional signals?

“Then Jennifer stops herself. It wasn’t her fault. Coke misinterpreted her body language or her nonverbal cues, maybe even the tone of her voice. Jennifer asked him nicely to stop; she was firm and clear, and still he persisted. He was in the wrong.”

As we now know, incidents like this have become all too common in our society.

As mentioned previously, Velsoft has begun a process to update or refresh all of our courses because we want to offer our clients the very best and latest information for their training needs. Workplace Harassment: What It Is and What To Do About It was on the list, but it wasn’t the next release planned. However, after receiving inquiries about buying the course as a result of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, we decided to move it to the top.

Workplace harassment and how to prevent it has become such an important issue in our global society in response to the viral Twitter post #metoo, which demonstrated the prevalence of sexual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace.

The Time’s Up movement was born from this, and it aims to end sexual harassment in the workplace. Founded by Hollywood celebrities, it’s also a legal defense fund that provides subsidized support to people who have experienced sexual harassment, assault or abuse in the workplace.

The timesupnow website says: “No more silence. No more waiting. No more tolerance for discrimination, harassment or abuse. Time’s up.

“The clock has run out on sexual assault, harassment and inequality in the workplace. It’s time to do something about it.”

At Velsoft, we hope our course can help do something about this, by providing employers and employees with training that will assist with preventing this type of misconduct, such as awareness of behavior that is considered inappropriate, as well as developing policies.

Because of the interest in Velsoft’s Workplace Harassment course, we felt that it was imperative to have an updated version available. And we’re releasing it now as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

You can find more information here.