Episode 175 · 27 February 2025 · 54:58
The Workplace Rules No One Explains, with The Harassment Doctor Enya Doyle
The Workplace Rules No One Explains, with The Harassment Doctor Enya Doyle
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Introducing Dr. Enya Doyle, The Harassment Doctor
Should you comfort a crying colleague?
Political correctness gone mad: calling staff love or darling
Is following employees on Instagram inappropriate?
interview#social-media#privacy#boundaries
Complimenting weight loss and 'you're looking well'
interview#compliments#weight-loss#ageism
Unkempt employees and the bias we let run riot
interview#appearance#bias#judgment
Defining harassment vs. sexual assault and the St. John's Ambulance campaign
Female managers refusing to meet male mentees
interview#mentorship#gender#management
Where to find Dr. Doyle and Leanne and Al debrief
Show notes
The Workplace Rules No One Explains, with The Harassment Doctor Dr. Enya Doyle
This Week in Work — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) bring you a Thursday special: a rapid-fire masterclass with Dr. Enya Doyle, aka The Harassment Doctor. She answers the awkward, messy, and legally risky workplace questions most managers are too afraid to ask — from comforting a crying colleague to whether it's ever okay to comment on someone's weight loss.
🔥 What We Covered
1. The crying colleague question When someone comes to you in tears — especially if they need to leave for a funeral or a family emergency — what's the right move? Dr. Doyle breaks down the gendered power dynamics at play and why the "right" response depends on the relationship, the context, and the physical environment. Key insight: asking permission before any physical contact changes everything.
2. "Political correctness gone mad" Dr. Doyle shares why this phrase is almost always a red flag. When someone uses it, they're usually signalling discomfort with losing a sense of control — not actually describing a real problem. It's a litmus test for where we are as a society.
3. Weight loss compliments Al asks about complimenting an employee who's lost weight and seems proud of it. Dr. Doyle's answer is nuanced: compliments about someone's effort or achievement are one thing, but commenting on their physical body — regardless of gender or sexual orientation — is a different territory entirely. Especially because some people lose weight for reasons that aren't brilliant.
4. Unkempt employees and bias What happens when a manager looks at someone who doesn't take care in their appearance? Dr. Doyle explains how bias "runs riot" in these situations — and why the real question is about professionalism standards, not personal preference. She also touches on the politicization of Black women's hair in particular.
5. Taller people earn more Al is genuinely shocked to learn that men over six feet earn more. "Higher earners are literally higher," he says. Dr. Doyle confirms the research and explains why height bias is just one of many unconscious factors shaping pay.
6. The St. John's Ambulance campaign Dr. Doyle references a recent campaign that reframes sexual assault prevention — shifting the responsibility from potential victims to everyone else. It's a powerful framing that challenges how we think about harassment claims.
🧠 Top 3 Takeaways
- Ask before you touch. Whether it's a hug, a hand on the shoulder, or comforting a crying colleague — always ask permission first. It changes the power dynamic and removes ambiguity.
- Compliment effort, not bodies. Commenting on someone's weight, appearance, or physical body at work is a risk — even when you think it's positive. Stick to achievements and effort.
- "Political correctness gone mad" is a warning sign. When someone uses this phrase, they're usually resisting a shift in power or control — not describing an actual problem.
📌 More From Dr. Enya Doyle
- Website: www.enyadoyle.com
- Instagram (@TheHarassmentDoctor): www.instagram.com/theharassmentdoctor
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/enya-doyle
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
Expand full transcript
Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Enya DoyleNice.
Al ElliottCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning psychology podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a chartered psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al, I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of work and create amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottYes, we are. Welcome, welcome. Hello, welcome to you if you are new. Thank you for coming back if you've been here before. Hope you're having a good week.
Leanne ElliottIf you are a regular listener, you'll know what, what we're gonna do. You'll know that today is Thursday. You'll know that in contrast, every Tuesday, Al and I bring you a roundup of the latest news in work culture, plus a hot take from an industry expert and our world-famous weekly Workplace Surgery, where Al puts all of your questions to me. And then every Thursday, that's today, we bring you a brand new interview with an expert guest who knows how to create great workplace cultures.
Al ElliottAnd this week's guest really kind of gave me a bit of a hard time, but to be fair, I did ask her to. This week's guest is the Harassment Doctor, Dr. Enya Doyle, whose job is to ensure that you as a leader, manager, or business owner Don't get yourself in a bit of a pickle at work.
Leanne ElliottAl asked her the top 10 questions we've seen around harassment, inclusion, and sexual assault in the workplace. Basically, he asked the questions that most managers are afraid to ask. He asked Dr. Doyle what to do in situations where you can't avoid touching someone at work.
Al ElliottThere is a situation.
Leanne ElliottIs there?
Al ElliottThere is.
Leanne ElliottOkay, they talked about whether a female manager refusing to meet male coworkers outside the office is actually sexist.
Al ElliottWe talked about that.
Leanne ElliottInteresting. And whether it's fair that attractive people sell more stuff. That's just pretty privilege, my friend.
Al ElliottWe also got into those awkward grey areas, like should you comfort a crying colleague? Uh, can you follow your employees on Instagram? And why are some managers obsessed with telling women to wear lipstick?
Leanne ElliottThis is a masterclass in eradicating harassment in your workplace. Al really does ask all the questions you might be afraid to. Let's go and join Al and Dr. Enya Doyle. Hi, everyone.
Enya DoyleI'm Dr. Enya Doyle. I am The Harassment Doctor. I spend my life working with companies to prevent and manage harassment in the workplace. Some of it is really fun for me, and some of it is less fun for you, particularly for HR directors and people working in diversity and inclusion. And it's obviously not particularly fun for anyone who ends up in an investigation. So, I spend my life being curious, asking questions, answering questions, and helping people to kind of navigate areas that feel really, really hard and really, really serious, kind of taking the sting out of a lot of that.
Al ElliottSo, quickfire session here over the next sort of 40 minutes. I'm going to be throwing a question at you, and you tell me where I'm getting it right and where I'm getting it wrong. Are you ready for question number 1?
Enya DoyleI'd love an Arthur Morel.
Al ElliottBrilliant. Okay, so question number 1: when a female employee— this is actually obviously quite serious, I'm smiling, but it's actually quite serious— when a female employee was crying about her father's death, I wanted to put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her, but I worried it could be harassment. What's appropriate? Where's the line?
Enya DoyleI find questions like this to kind of be the indicator of where we are, the litmus test of where we are as a society. Where something this serious, something this kind of huge and monumental in someone's life, the thing that we're thinking about is, am I going to be on the other side of a harassment claim if I touch this colleague? And I think that's the first thing that I would like to say is that common sense is something that most of us have, and most people will not be accused of doing something like this if they haven't done it or if they didn't intend to. And I hazard that we'll get into intention versus impact. Somewhere later down the line. But I would say with this one, in terms of what's appropriate, there's a kind of what your relationship is. I know it's one of those tedious things that experts always say, like, it's a case-by-case basis. But there's a reason that we tend to say it, which is it depends on your relationship with this person. It depends on what you know that they would want or not want in that situation. Are they—
Al ElliottYeah.
Enya DoyleComing to you crying because they have to tell you because they need to go to a funeral or they need to take time off, and it just happens that they're crying? Or are they choosing to spend time with you as a place of solace? Do you have a longstanding relationship with them? Have you been their manager for years? Or would you consider them the kind of friend slash colleague? In which case, you know, taking it as a, okay, I'm going to assume that actually now the thing that you would like is physical comfort, and I feel confident in that decision.
Al ElliottYeah.
Enya DoyleI think in terms of things that you could do to kind of mitigate the risk, as it were, is to ask them if they need anything. So, do you need a tissue? Would you like a hug? Questions like that put it back into their hands of like, I'm not going to ignore that you're crying, which is what tends to happen is like, we're going to pretend you're not crying about something that obviously you're crying about. And that's a completely natural response. But then the other side and the other question that I often frame to colleagues who are like, I don't know what to do, is, what would you do if it were a male colleague? Would you put your hand on this person if they were male? And if the answer is, I'm not sure, then don't. And if you're really not sure, then the best thing is to just not touch them. Like, best case scenario, the worst thing that happens is that they say, You weren't very affectionate. Like, okay, I tried other things. Like, I was kind, I was calm. Like, I was really open with the things that you wanted. I let you lead the conversation, did all of the other really good things. But, you know, I think I'll be fine if the worst that you can say about my response to your dad dying was, he didn't hug me. Like, yeah, okay, cool. Sorry about that.
Al ElliottInteresting. You just, at the end, you went, she didn't, he didn't hug me. Do you think then, I mean, are the rules the same if it was a female comforting a male or a male comforting a female? Are they exactly the same?
Enya DoyleThere's a kind of power dynamic that is gendered that does tend to change what we expect from our bosses and also what we expect of ourselves depending on our gender. I think if I think about this scenario and I think you're a male boss and the colleague who you're managing is male, you probably wouldn't even ask that question of whether you should touch them. Women managing women most of the time might have the expectation that they're expected to engage in physical contact, even if they don't want to. They might have that expectation of like, that's what's expected of me. And then you go into this really odd space, whether the boss is female or male and the other person is of another gender identity. So, you get this kind of weird, am I allowed to do that? Which is interesting, and we'll not go down this tangent, but it's interesting if you add in what happens if you're LGBTQ+ into all of this. Does the expectation shift if the male manager is gay? Do we have a different expectation of him in that space? But these are all questions to kind of ask yourself if you're thinking about these situations.
Al ElliottAnd you also called me out inadvertently there, or perhaps advertently, if that's the opposite of inadvertently there, by me just thinking about the 2 dynamics of male-female, female-male. You're right. I hadn't thought about any other genders. I hadn't thought about same gender. I hadn't thought about gay. That was— this is why people need you because they make you think, oh God, there's lots of things that I naturally haven't actually thought about.
Enya DoyleYeah. And that's the thing. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but there's loads of this that can be prevented. If you think about it more in the right.
Al ElliottOkay, well, let's go on to talking of genders and old white people, old white men like me. Let's go on to this question, which I thought was quite funny. This is, I'm guessing this is someone from the UK, just from the way it's written. I've called female staff love or darling for 35 years. It's just my way of being friendly. My new sales exec has complained to HR. This is political correctness gone— sorry, I said that really weirdly. This is political correctness gone mad, surely.
Enya DoyleI kind of love the phrase, this is political correctness gone mad. I think it's always, actually in my experience, it's always an indication of someone that wants to have a conversation. Usually people that are like, political correctness has gone mad, either want a conversation or a debate because why else would you invoke that kind of phrase? So, things that I think. It's not as straightforward as it seems. And there are definitely parts of the country where I lived in Durham for nearly 10 years of my life, and it was very, very common for everyone over the age of kind of 40 to call everyone love, darling, or pet. It was kind of indiscriminate. It was at the end of every sentence as though it was a full stop. And In that sense, when I was there, I definitely didn't think about it at all. It never occurred to me that people would be like, that's a bit weird when people do that. But as I traveled the country and realized that that wasn't normal anymore, I obviously had lived where it wasn't normal and it wasn't commonplace, but thinking about what's normal in certain demographics with certain kind of where you've grown up or where you've worked, But then also thinking of the age of these people, I think you said like 35 years or something like, I've been doing this forever. I think old people get a bad reputation in inclusion work and in this sort of space a lot. But my experience has been that, you know, you can teach an old dog new tricks. And there are lots of people who have been like, okay, you don't love that. And I don't need to, like, I don't need to call you pet or darling. It doesn't make me feel any more comfortable. The whole point of me calling you pet or darling is that I'm showing to you that I'm affectionate towards you. So if you're not receiving it in that way, then I don't need, I don't need to do that. Like, I'm not morally required. It's not, it's not that it just comes out of my mouth and I absolutely must say it every single time. Like, we do have—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Enya DoyleA sense of control. And I think that's the thing that I would say is once you've realized that somebody might not like that, might not want that, at that point, when you persist to do it intentionally, and that's not to say that you might spend some time trying to get used to it, being like, oh crap, I said it again. Like, okay, that's fine. If it was unintentional, you've been saying it for 35 years, that's grand. But if now you know that I don't love that, or that we generally don't love that in a professional context anymore, that as a company we've decided to kind of get rid of that, then, you know, as long as you're trying and you understand that it's about the impact on me, it's about how it makes me feel, that most people, even and especially older white men, are like, yeah, fair enough.
Al ElliottThat's a That's, that's such a great answer. I, I remember, um, I remember just, it was only like 2 years ago that I would, I described to Leanne, I was like, oh yes, so I met these 2 ladies and Leanne's like, no, actually what you should really be doing is describing them as women.
Enya DoyleMm-hmm.
Al ElliottAnd I, and I was like, I was a bit mortified. I was like, I don't, I, there wasn't meant to be any malice there, but I, I know now when I, when I was younger, I used to say, oh, the girls who work the phones.
Enya DoyleMm-hmm.
Al ElliottUm, which I knew, I immediately understood. Nope, that's not right. But then I couldn't really get my head around this ladies thing, but Leanne schooled me.
Enya DoyleAnd I think like there's another side to it, which is that we've all kind of done it. Like guys is the kind of common workplace one when they do workplace training on language that's cancelled. It's guys. Guys is the first thing that's cancelled in all workplace training. And like I said guys for ages, but it's thinking about that I would now say hi team or hi everyone. And that's language that works for me. And you will have to find your own language. And if you need to replace that with something, because that's something you feel like, I want to be slightly more involved, I don't want to just say hi, I want to say something, or I want to give a description of that group, or I want you to know the sort of vibe that I'm talking about. Is it necessary for you to call them ladies, or is it that you're trying to say—
Al ElliottYeah.
Enya Doyleto Leanne, they were women, and that's important to the story that they were women. Because most of the time, it's not important to the story. Most of the time when you're talking to a room of women, there's no real need to say, hi ladies. You don't have to say, hi ladies. You can just say, hi all, thanks for coming. You don't have to say, oh, just letting you know that I've realized that you're all probably biologically women, to the best of my knowledge. Like, okay. Or you could have just said, hi all, and then we could have moved on. But— You chose to hide it, Izzy, and now I'm annoyed.
Al ElliottIt's a really good point and something I hadn't considered, that you need— that I needed to tell people that people I was talking about were female or present as female. There just seems no need for that. And so genuinely, that is a learning moment for me or a teaching moment for me to understand, okay, yeah, probably I, I don't need to think about that. Let's, let's just move on a little bit because I want to talk about this one, which is quite a popular, quite, quite a common question. So, the context is it's from someone who's a manager. It doesn't say whether they're, what gender or what they are, what age they are, but they said, is it harassment if I like or comment on my employees' public Instagram posts?
Enya DoyleLove that. The thing, the thing with this is start with, start with the Instagram. The Instagram is public. There's a kind of tacit acceptance that you'll get weirdos. that you'll probably get a sexbot contacting you, that you'll probably get whatever, that your grandma can follow you, and also so can the person who bullied you when you were in year 9. All of those people can find you on your public Instagram. So there's a kind of tacit acceptance that there's a certain level of your boss can find you on Instagram. And we have kind of gone through, kind of since 2012, this like everyone can see and the kind of disclaimers on LinkedIn of like, this opinion is of my own and I'm not representing my company. I have a personal life. And so, there's that kind of part of this, which is if you have a public Instagram, your boss can see your account. That being said, there is another part of this, which is that you should feel some semblance of being able to, A, switch off from work, and B, feel like you're not being watched by someone. So, it's not a If you're not doing anything illegal and you're not posting it online, your boss should be like, oh, those are lovely pictures of Leanne and Al on holiday. Isn't that nice? Like, and then moves on with their life. Where it strays into the territory of bad vibes, not way before we get to harassment, way before we get to illegal, is where you're persistently commenting on everything and you're DMing them like 5 times about their pictures, or you're insisting that they know that you know where they are, or you're messaging them and saying, aren't you supposed to be at work? And all of those sorts of things that are like, okay, am I being watched? This feels like Big Brother. So, there's a line that you as a manager have to establish with your colleagues, which is, are we going to be kind of quasi-friends? Am I going to have your personal number? Am I going to follow you on Instagram? And where are we drawing that line on friends? Or is the easiest answer, and most managers tend to come to this conclusion, is it best for us to just keep work and our personal life separate? And I'll not follow you on Instagram. We'll maybe be connected on LinkedIn and some of your holiday snaps might end up there because that happens on LinkedIn sometimes. But actually your personal life is your own and I'm not interested. It's about the kind of the way that you interact with that. I don't think anyone has an issue. Most people don't have an issue with their boss.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Enya Doylebeing there around them if they've got a public Instagram account. But also, do you really need to see what your colleagues are up to all the time? Are you really interested? Especially if you're worried that it's going to be tantamount to a harassment claim. The final thing that I would say on that one is social media is probably the most stupid place to harass someone because it's the easiest place to evidence that you harassed them. Because you can screenshot it. So, you know, I wouldn't recommend that to anyone that's considering harassing their colleagues via social media because they will just screenshot it and then that evidence can be very easily used.
Al ElliottOkay. So, I've got another one. One of our older employees, again, I don't know why they need to say older. One of our employees, see, I'm learning.
Enya DoyleI'm learning.
Al ElliottOne of our employees has lost significant weight and seems very proud of it. Is complimenting this inappropriate? And the context here, it says, I'm their manager.
Enya DoyleCompliments are an interesting one because there's been a lot of kind of research done recently, kind of straw polls of the population, and compliments are one of the things that everyone's like, bring back compliments, like make compliments great again kind of vibes. And the thing that I would generally say is if someone's proud of something and they're talking about it, then obviously you can engage in it. With a key caveat, which is you don't have to actually comment on their weight or how they look in order to do that. You can comment on how brilliant an achievement it is or how committed they've been to the process. You can be curious about how that happened of like, have you been following a particular plan? Do you think going to the gym has made the most difference? Or do you think it was about food? Without talking to them in any way about their compliment.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Enya Doyletheir actual physical body. Again, irrespective of your gender identity or your sexual orientation, it doesn't really matter. There are ways to be like, I see you and I see how proud you are of your body and the changes that you've made to your lifestyle, without having to be like, hey Jenny, you look really sexy in that skirt now that you're 2 stone lighter. Like, okay, thanks, Al. Like, I appreciate that so much. Um, like it doesn't have to go super creepy, you know, there are plenty of ways for you to do it without being like, okay, that just happened.
Al ElliottSo let's, let's, let's stick with this for just a second. One of the things that I started saying, um, when I see someone and they are looking really good is I used to say, oh, you look great. And then I realized that's got some slight connotations, particularly coming from an older male. So now I changed it and tell me if this is right or wrong. Please tell me if it's wrong. And I start saying, you're looking really well. Is that better or am I still in that weird territory?
Enya DoyleIt kind of brings you into a different weird territory, which is that some people lose weight for not brilliant reasons. And actually that might end up with them looking well or looking like they've lost weight. And you perhaps maybe make the assumption that they've intentionally done that. But actually it could be because of medication or it could be because of the stress or it could be because of whatever. The looking really well is pro— and this is definitely a personal thing. Like, I haven't been particularly well for a couple of years and as part of that, I have lost quite a lot of weight and people have said to me, you look really well. And I'm like, hahaha, that's adorable. Because it's well-intentioned, right? It's like, you look amazing. And I'm like, haha, I feel like shit. So, thanks. But I think that there's a kind of, again, there's a common sense part of this, which is that there are some people who will want you to compliment them, who are kind of begging you to say you look great. And in the scenario that you kind of initially outlined, this person's really proud of what they've done. For you to say you look really well is exactly the right response there. That's the conversation. They've started the conversation. They're happy to talk to you about it. They're being really open about their, the process. And you're then acknowledging the part of that, which is, yeah, you look really well. Like, I'm really proud of you. I'm really pleased for you. Um, rather than the kind of, a lot of this is the unwanted compliments that err really closely towards like catcalling or err really closely to that power dynamic being completely abused.
Al ElliottYeah.
Enya DoyleLike, if she had never brought it up with you, and you just suddenly started a one-to-one meeting with her and were like, you look amazing. Like, okay, like, I might look amazing, but that is not for you to say.
Al ElliottSo, I'm now going to slightly change again and be very much more mindful about whether I'm saying you're looking well. This is, this is great. Let's talk about inclusion for a second here. So, the question I've got here is, I want to insist older employees use our messaging system instead of face-to-face conversations in the office, but would this be an inclusion issue seeing as the majority of them prefer to walk over to a desk and have a chat rather than jump on Slack?
Enya DoyleYou've really got something against older people, Al. Are you, are you aging badly? Like, what's going on? You can tell me.
Al ElliottThat'd be great to have you on tape being really offensive to me.
Enya DoyleYeah, that'll be good. Yeah, yeah. Please just put that out as the sidebar. That'll be nice. Amazing. Okay. I think the main things that I would say are, yes, it's probably not great if you're assuming that they don't want to do it rather than they just haven't been trained. Like, taking the kind of reasonable adjustments approach to this, the assumption that junior members of staff will just know how to use Slack or will figure it out doesn't apply to older members of staff who have never had to use it. And say they've been working in your company for 25 years and they've got away with the kind of, you've never said to them, I need you to be on Teams, or, I need you to be on Slack, or, I need you to whatever, whatever part of it it is. If you've never held them accountable as that's been changing, then you don't suddenly get to mandate these things without saying, can I help you? Do you need me to guide you through it? Would you like some additional time to get Like on the clock, paid time, not in your own time at 10 PM when all of your 19-year-old colleagues are learning how to use all of these fun social whatevers. But on the clock, we'll pay for you to go on a course, or we'll sit you with a colleague in your team who does know this really, really well. IT will help you with whatever you need. And being patient with the fact that the world has changed rapidly and is changing rapidly for colleagues of all ages.
Al ElliottYeah.
Enya DoyleBut thinking about the kind of grace that you give to them in learning new stuff. And if it is complicated, which a lot of it is, like replying to all in emails was a massive thing, still is. People still reply all to emails when it's abundantly clear that that's not a reply all situation. And for some people that's like, oh, I usually use Outlook and now I'm on Gmail because I've just started a new job and I don't know where the don't reply all button is. And that happens to people of all ages. But I would say you need to put the— take the barriers down for people before you start mandating things for them. And also, there are pros and cons as we talk about the mandate to the return to office and flexible working and et cetera. You've got to find a hybrid model, but you've also got to train your colleagues and you've got to provide them with the tools in order to mandate those sorts of models. You can't just insist things.
Al ElliottYeah.
Enya DoyleAnd then be like, oh, it's because they're old. Like, no, it's because you're a bad manager.
Leanne ElliottAfter this short break, Al and Dr. Doyle talk about unkempt employees, a workplace that is full of banter and swearing, and whether it's fair that taller people get paid more. What? Don't go anywhere. Is that true? Did you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network.
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking. And you're not gonna say which. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s— the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Leanne ElliottThe audio destination for business professionals.
Enya DoyleSeamless.
Al ElliottSeamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Enya DoyleIt is.
Leanne ElliottIt's such, it's such a good show. So of course you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Enya DoyleSo come back.
Leanne ElliottWelcome back. Let's rejoin the interview where Al somehow steers the conversation towards the cabin crew on Jet2 Airlines.
Al ElliottIt's true, I do. I want to stick with the inclusion idea, but I don't know whether this actually comes under inclusion. So let me, let me tell you, and you can tell me where I've got this right or wrong. So an employee's appearance has become unprofessional— wrinkled clothes, messy hair. Um, how do I address this without it being a harassment or, and I've added, or inclusion issue? And again, you can see where I'm wondering, I don't know whether it's inclusion, whether it's just a potentially a personal situation. What are your thoughts?
Enya DoyleI think there are probably actually very few workplaces in which the way that you dress is actually unprofessional. Um, and this is something, this is probably a kind of like, Enya gets cancelled. perspective. But I think unless you're like kind of cabin crew is the obvious ones. If we think of like they are the people that if their uniform looks a certain way, you're like, oh, you know, I flew with this company and their uniform was impeccable and so was their service. Like it's an indication of the sort of we take care in the little details kind of vibes. But most people that work in offices that work from home or wherever are like, It really doesn't matter what I'm wearing. But if you're considering me unprofessional because of the way my hair looks or whatever else, then we're probably into an issue where you have a problem with me rather than a problem with my clothes. Or if you have a problem with my output, then that's actually nothing to do with the clothes that I'm wearing or how frequently I wash my hair. Like, let's focus on the fact that I'm not doing my key performance objectives, I'm not keeping up with what you want me to do in the workplace, you don't have to make that about my clothes or what I wear. And we learned that lesson really well during COVID when everyone was wearing their jammies on the bottom half and then had the shirts and the blazers on. And there's really funny pictures online of people being like, come into work wearing what you wore during COVID And part of that is tongue-in-cheek of like, you would never possibly do that now. But I'm like, Okay, but were you happy with their outputs during that period of time? Did it make any difference to how the client perceived them? Did it make any difference negatively to the way that they were seen? And the kind of other side of that is, like, you know, if you're not happy with their work, then you need to tell them that. You can't just be like, I think you're dressing unprofessionally, and that's my problem with you, because most workplaces don't actually have a consistently applied code of conduct when it comes to the clothes that you wear. So, when you start bringing that one out, it's almost like a, are you not able to tell me that you don't like my work, so you're going to try and take me down personally? That's often how it plays out. The final thing related to the inclusion point is that the people that tend to be called out for this more often are Black women. And so, it definitely has an additional inclusion strain to it. Which is that very often it is people who have additional barriers to success in the workplace systemically that end up being put on performance reviews for this sort of stuff.
Al ElliottWhy would it be Black women? I've not spent time in an office for a very, very long time, so it's a genuine question, innocent. Why would it more likely be Black women?
Enya DoyleIt's about the politicization of Black women's hair in particular. There's a lot of stuff around how Black people have their hair in the workplace and it being perceived to be unprofessional. We see it a lot in schools as well with the kind of, it's called the Halo Code. There's a really amazing project doing amazing work on this of like who's more likely to be written up for detentions based on their appearance. And we see the same in the workplace. It's most likely to be people who it's like, for some reason, I just don't like the way you look. Is it, is it because of the color of my skin? No. Is it because of my sex?
Al ElliottI know, never occurred to me there. So let's just stay with this because I've got a follow-up question. You mentioned something before, which is a really great example. You said that cabin crew, then cabin crew, you look at, I like, I flew Jet2 recently and the service was great and they looked immaculate and I just really enjoyed the experience compared to some of the other, I'm sorry, I know you're Irish, but some of the other, some of the other airlines that may, may come from your home country. Um, however, I made a judgment, I think, initially when I sat down on how everyone was presented. They looked very clean, tidy, whatever. And so I thought, well, this is probably going to be good. It's the same. You walk past a cafe, the windows are dirty.
Enya DoyleYep.
Al ElliottYou go, well, I'm not going in there.
Enya DoyleYep.
Al ElliottSo could the same be applied if a manager looks at someone who doesn't take any care in their appearance, looks scruffy, doesn't care what they wear, hair's all over the place, you know, missed a bit when they shaved. Does that then suggest perhaps that they might be missing stuff in their work?
Enya DoyleYeah, there's the kind of bias that we just kind of allow to run riot sitting in there. But the question, the thing that I often say in that context is, who do you think designed all of the tech that we use now? It's the tech bros in Silicon Valley who are in their shorts and their t-shirts that have got stains the whole way down them. Not exclusively, But there are lots of people who are doing amazing work. Like, I think of my time in academia, and I spent most of my time writing my PhD, which everyone is like, objectively, that's really amazing. 2% of the population have a PhD. And like, I wrote most of that in a hoodie. I wrote most of it in the same hoodie. Like, we can be impressive in ways that we don't expect, but it comes from a kind of, I think the protection element of it and the curiosity about it is You know, some people do want to dress really well for work, and some people kind of goes back again to the school uniform situation of, you know, if we were told that we were on non-uniform day, it was like, we're going rioting. This is amazing. And not in the Northern Irish rioting way, but in the like, we're having like the best day. This is a fun day at school. This isn't a learning day at school. And for some people it's like, I have to be in my uniform. I have to be really immaculately dressed. I have to do my tie. I have to wear a blazer. in order to be in that kind of headspace to concentrate well. And if that is you, that is a bias that you hold about how other people do work really well and what they need in order to concentrate. And we see the same in kind of bullpens and whether people would prefer to be in their own space. And you then get into neuroinclusivity and all of that sort of thing too. But I would say that a lot of it is personal preference. And as long as You're setting good objectives for your team and they are fulfilling them. Unless there's a business need for them to be dressed immaculately, you're probably just being picky.
Al ElliottLet's stick with this idea because I've got one question here at the end, which I thought was, was kind of on the face of it almost a bit sweet, but also, oh, I can see why it'd be weird. So, this person wrote, I have a young female employee who reminds me so much of my daughter. I often give her advice about wearing heels and lipstick. For client meetings, just like I would for my own daughter. Someone said this could be harassment, but I'm helping her career. What am I doing wrong?
Enya DoyleI think that the kind of, the, one of the things that we haven't really spoken about is like the actual definition of harassment. Um, and we're, we're thinking about unwanted behavior. We're thinking unwanted behavior of a sexual context, maybe, but also doesn't have to be. And we're kind of engaging in this in a way that's like, okay, why are you— what are you suggesting? Are you suggesting to this junior colleague that the only way that they'll be able to succeed is if they wear lipstick with a particular client? Because if that's what you're saying to me, then you're saying that the only way that I'm succeeding, the only reason that I'm here is as a piece of physical meat. So I'm being offered up to our client as an attractive person. And unless you are in sex work, there's very little reason for that to be the case. Why have you hired me? You've hired me so that I can be the pretty one that comes in that does modeling. It's like, well, I'm not here— like, I'm a senior analyst, or I'm a senior salesperson, or whatever. I'm very competent at my job. I have all of the skills and requirements. I've done all of the training, and yet you're reducing me in this space to being lipstick and heels. And that's how often it comes across when there's very well-meaning— like, the daughter part of this is a really key part of this, of like, you're giving that advice to your daughter. And there's a backwards kind of way of going forwards with this, which is that we appreciate that the systems are kind of flawed. And so, what we tend to do is teach people how to play the systems rather than tear down the systems. So, instead of saying to the client that is likely to treat your female colleagues with more respect if they're kind of Western notion of attractive, instead of doing that, and instead of the second option, which tends to be the case, is we'll just send male colleagues to this meeting instead because he's a bit of a sexist pig and he's a bit of a misogynist. And he's really attracted toward junior women. So, then you send men instead. That's also not the solution. The solution is readdressing your relationship with this client, telling the client that you'll no longer be tolerating this behavior from him, and you really respect and have hired really eminent and excellent people who are brilliant at their jobs, and they won't be dressing in any particular way for you because that's not their job. Their job is to provide you the analysis. Their job is to do that financial merger. Their job is to advise you on X, Y, or Z. And so, like, if you don't like that, you can find another company, but we'll not be working with you, rather than taking the vulnerable person in that situation and asking them to change or asking them to play a game that is very, very based on them being sexualized and that being the most important part of the engagement.
Al ElliottSo let's say that you, that someone is a, uh, 21-year-old male or female, very good looking. Um, and they're in a sales job.
Enya DoyleMm-hmm.
Al ElliottUm, some might argue that they are going to close more sales than someone like me who's a bit overweight, middle-aged. So are we, is that an, is that fair? Should they be using, you know, should they be backing off and going, oh no, I'll put frumpy clothes on because I don't want, I meant frumpy as in both genders because I don't, do you know what I'm trying to say out there? I can, I can see someone coming and going, well, hang on a minute, Dr. Doyle, there is another side to this.
Enya DoyleYeah. What about the hot people?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Enya DoyleMostly hot.
Al ElliottThose poor hot people. Yeah. They've got such a rough ride in life.
Enya DoyleIt should be a protected characteristic. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that's probably the, like, the funny reaction to it. The serious reaction to it is that we know that's, that's true. We know that men over 6 foot get paid more than men under 6 foot. There's lots of research to back that up. So yeah, hotter people do tend to do better. If you look at estate agents, for example, they all tend to be very sprightly, very attractive people. And that's intentional in the same way that the intentionality of business models like cabin crew, the way that they've historically gone through, there's a very intentional sales part of that. And yes, you are more likely to buy If you think of kind of going into Rolex or you think of going into big brands that are like, we are about beauty and we are about very minute details, obviously that needs to apply the whole way through their business model. And if you're thinking about selling things that are pretty, you're obviously going to have a preference to having people who are pretty sell you the things that are pretty. But once we appreciate that that's the case, there's also an element of like, okay, well, Like, is that the business model that we're going to— like, is that the hill we're going to die on? And loads of companies are like, yeah, like, that's our, that's our sales model. What are you going to do about it? Because it's not a protected characteristic. Like, being ugly isn't a protected characteristic. Being middle-aged and fat isn't protected. Like, okay, fine. You're not being discriminated against in the work— in the workplace in a very specific way. No, we can break it down into, is this sexism? And a lot of the times there are far higher expectations of women, even attractive women in the workplace, to use their attraction in a way that doesn't sit well with them, rather than a lot of men being like, I'm going to use my kind of sexiness to win you over. And that being an active thing that they choose to engage in. That's not to say that there aren't lots of women who know that they're really hot and know that they can sell you something because they're really hot. But thinking about it, kind of going back to the daughter angle and reversing the daughter angle, what would you say if your daughter came home and said, my middle-aged boss told me that I need to bring heels into work tomorrow? You'd lose your mind. You would absolutely lose your mind that another man was giving your daughter kind of sexualized advice about how to get on at work, most likely. So, there's probably people, there'll definitely be people who'd be like, No, if it's good business advice, it's good business advice. And I guess on that note, going back to the same thing that I said to you at the start, is, are you only giving her advice on what she wears to these things, or are you giving her actual business advice that makes her better at her job? In terms of the minutiae of the detail, in terms of her becoming a manager one day, in terms of her doing her job better. Like, what sort of advice are you giving to her male colleagues about that interaction with that client? Versus the information that you're giving to her, because that's where we get into this being sexist territory. And this is where we get into it being a, hmm, I think you might just be giving her sexualized advice rather than giving her good business advice.
Al ElliottBy the way, people over 6 foot, men over 6 foot earn more. Is that what you said?
Enya DoyleYeah.
Al ElliottThat's incredible. So higher earners are literally higher.
Enya DoyleYes.
Al ElliottYes.
Enya DoyleI love it.
Al ElliottI love it. Okay. So, um, here's a bit more of a, of a less sort of shocking one. Well, it may, depends who you are. Our casual office includes swearing. A new employee seems shocked. Do we really need to change our entire culture for just one person?
Enya DoyleThe short answer is yes. The long answer is, again, thinking about the kind of low bar here and going back to kind of earlier conversations, you don't absolutely have to swear. It's not an innate thing. It's not a kind of human rights violation for you to not be allowed to swear around people who find it uncomfortable for whatever reasons. And it doesn't have to be a blanket kind of no. You can still swear with your friends. You can still swear with the people that you work with that are really close to you. But kind of basic decency is that that person doesn't love that, and so you're not going to do it. I think an example of this, like before we started, Al and I were sharing our common love for some swear words, as is often the case before one records a podcast. And one of the things that I often think about is when I worked in a school, I am a very sweary person, but I would never swear in front of the young people because obviously we're practicing good behavior and we're supposed to be modeling that behavior. And lots of my colleagues would be like, And you don't swear in front of the children. Like, have you ever seen me swear in front of the children? No, because I have self-control. And that's the thing. Like, you don't have to swear in front of your peers. You don't have to swear in front of the new members of staff. And it's not a human rights violation. It's just basic decency. You can swear elsewhere. You can swear at home if you're happy to do that. You can still swear with those people. You can still send them messages that have swear words in them if you want. But, you know, thinking about the impact on that other person, and that they will recognize that you are again trying, like it's something that maybe you do a lot. And the office culture has changed, whether you're a growing team or you've just replaced someone else. This is a kind of— this is one of the dances of diversity is, yes, we do sometimes have to change parts of our culture when we have new people coming in. And as long as we're all in agreement, then Everyone feels safe and confident here to do their jobs, then you can swear later.
Al ElliottLet's move on to another one, which I genuinely, I want to really want to hear your answer on this because this, this is from someone who I think works in manufacturing. It says, I have to demonstrate safe machine handling, which requires physical contact, e.g., moving someone's hands to a specific place on the machine. How do I avoid a harassment claim?
Enya DoyleBy not harassing whoever you're bossing. That'll be one way.
Al ElliottThank you very much.
Enya DoyleI think the first thing that I would say is it wouldn't be a harassment claim. It would be a claim of sexual assault. Not to kind of increase the fear stakes here, but harassment is usually not physical. It's usually verbal. So if you're putting your hands on somebody's body without their consent, Then you're likely to be straying into a completely different legal territory. So, that's the first fear part of it.
Leanne ElliottYou're welcome.
Enya DoyleThe second bit of it is that it reminds me of a recent campaign from St. John's Ambulance. I don't know if you've seen it, the It's Okay to Save My Life. They basically find, St. John's Ambulance find that a third of people are kind of worried about giving CPR. to a woman because they're afraid of getting a claim of what they think harassment. And again, I say again to you, that would be sexual assault if that's what was happening. But the key part of it is that it's unwanted. So it's okay to save my life. Everyone would be like, I want you to save my life. There are very, very few people in very, very few— I'm not even going to go into the reasons why people might not want you to do that if it's a stranger on the street. Most people will want you to save their lives. Most people will want you to perform CPR. We'll deal with the consequences later. Like, break my ribs, go for it. But there's this kind of fear of like, okay, I can't touch you without your consent in that way. And that extends to the kind of workplace risk. A lot of the companies that I work with, when I do risk diagnostics with them, this is the sort of thing of like, if this comes up all the time, If this is a key part of men's jobs, if this is a key part of people doing this job, is that they have to touch someone else. So, we've got chiropractors, we've got singing teachers, we've got loads of different people that are like, I'm going to put my hand on your body now in order to do this thing, and I don't want to be accused of something. For the managers, for the senior leadership, is looking at how you actually prevent this. So, is there a kind of sheet that you need to put up, which is like, this is what is required in order for this machine to be performed on safely. So you'll be required to be touched in this way. This is what it looks like. This is what's normal and usual. If you find that uncomfortable, if you've got any concerns at all about it, here's where you go to. And that's right beside the machine. And that's an example of the kind of preventative practice of it. And the other thing is, if it's you and you're like, I have to touch you, then being really clear in your communication of, this is what I'm going to do now. This is how long it will last. I won't be touching you anywhere else, and I don't want to touch you for any other reason other than for the safe performance of this machinery. And then you're being really clear about where you're expecting to touch them, why you're expecting to touch them, how long that's likely to last. And importantly, if they want you to remove your hands from their body, when that might be safe to do so, or when that wouldn't be safe. So, if you say, I'm feeling really uncomfortable, and they're like, we can't turn the machine off for another 5 seconds, then they know that before they get into it. So, they know that before you start. The kind of prevention of all of this is not in going, I just can't touch anyone these days. It's in, okay, well, I'm going to be really clear with you about what's going to happen. You won't, you shouldn't expect to feel my hand on your bum. You shouldn't expect to feel my hand roll down your hands. I will put my hands specifically where you can see them, where you can touch. And also, we're being recorded. It's on CCTV. Just so you know, there's a CCTV camera there. I'm aware that it's there. You're now aware that it's there. Here we go. Everyone's really clear and transparent. Do you have any questions? And then you let the other person give you the question— questions. There are loads of things that we have to do in the workplace that we have to do safely, but loads of it is really poorly communicated. And that's where all of this becomes a, like, I'm going to be cancelled and/or sued and/or have a criminal case against me. All of that could have been prevented.
Al ElliottThis last one I've got here is, and it's an interesting one, a female manager won't meet male mentees. And I'm, and just to understand, I think mentees is a mentorship situation where it's The person, so this female manager will be the mentor and this male will be a mentee. Have I understood that right? Yep. So female manager won't meet the males she's mentoring outside the office, but will happily meet female mentees outside the office. Is this discriminatory towards the men?
Enya DoyleProbably. Um, I think particularly in, uh, in a space where you're supposed to be treating everyone Equitably, an interesting use of equitably versus equally. In a mentorship program where there's an assumption that the woman is in charge, if you're supposed to say you have 3, say you have 6 kind of mentees and 3 of them are women and 3 of them are men for this purpose, there are no non-binary people being engaged in this mentorship program, although we'll come back to that. When we're thinking about the next mentorship program cycle. But thinking about the way that you engage with those sexes in this program, what is it that you're doing? Are you taking the women out for coffee and having very casual conversations about their feelings and having very dry, stuffy business-type meetings with the men in-house? How does it change what they get access to, what part of you they're accessing? And particularly if they're in the same mentorship program. There are lots of good examples of mentorship programs and sponsorship programs that are specifically for women. And so, there might be completely different outcomes, and that is very legal and in the UK is definitely recommended, even in lots of industries. But if you've got people of both genders and you're explicitly treating them differently, And it's very clear that that's down gendered lines or down the lines of sex, you probably won't have an awful leg to stand on, even though what we can see and what we can tell is that there's that power imbalance, that women don't often want to take men for drinks or dinner because of that kind of risk of sexual assault. That is very real and that is there. But also in this scenario, then the solution to that is to think about the parameters around the mentorship program and keeping you safe. It's not about treating men and women differently, because also there's a likelihood that is that no one's really benefiting from that mentorship program if one of it— if one of them is a casual kind of coffee situation or is over dinner. And the other is an agendaed meeting, which is minuted and has key objectives for the next meeting, and you have actions. Whereas the other one, and I'm not saying that everyone that goes for coffee with their boss is not having a very professional or action or targeted meeting, but you're more likely to get into the, again, very gendered stuff of men do business and action and women have feelings.
Al ElliottTell us, if, um, someone's listening and they want to find out a bit more about you, where's the best place for them to go?
Enya DoyleSo, you can find out more about me and what I do on my website, which is enya-doyle.com. You can also follow me on Instagram @theharassmentdoctor, and you're also more than welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn, Dr. Enya Doyle.
Leanne ElliottWell, that was, that was interesting, eye-opening, great stuff in there, Al. Wow.
Al ElliottYeah, genuinely eye-opening for me because You'll probably hear, I left, I usually edit out my questions so they just, it just asked the question, but there was some stuff in there where she said, uh, Dr. Doyle said something and I was like, oh yeah, no, you're right. I've made an assumption there and I hadn't realized I'd learned. So I basically learned so many things about things I hadn't even really considered before. Um, my biggest takeaway I suppose was that I was guilt— I am guilty of describing people by gender when it's just not relevant to what I'm actually talking about.
Leanne ElliottIt's funny, isn't it, how just these social cues are so, so ingrained in us, we don't actually realize that it is, it is pointing out people's demographics and it way that is unnecessary. I also loved, um, Enya's approach in terms of how she balances the serious nature of harassment with the practical, common sense solutions. I think she really does challenge all of us to think beyond just avoiding legal issues and actually focus on creating genuinely respectful workplaces.
Al ElliottYeah, if you want to learn more about Enya's work, then you can find her at enyadoyle.com or follow her as The Harassment Doctor on Instagram. She's also on LinkedIn as Dr. Enya Doyle.
Leanne ElliottAnd as always, make sure you're subscribed wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean a lot to us if you posted about it, maybe on LinkedIn or on Instagram if you prefer. There are no rules here, um, apart from all the harassment ones we've just talked about. Um, if you know someone in your network that needs to hear this conversation, perhaps quite urgently, um, best maybe not to tag them in that one, but maybe just slide it into their DMs. I don't know, what do you think, Al? You, you spoke to Dr. Enya recently. What would be the best approach?
Al ElliottI think Dr. Enya would just basically tag them or probably do a little, a little post about them or a reel Like, mate, you need to listen to this. But honestly, yeah, I think it's just really, really good common sense advice. And Dr. Doyle's funny. She's like, you would expect for someone who was like an expert in harassment inclusion, you'd be thinking, oh, well, you know, quite straight-laced and straight, you know, straight down the line. She's a hilarious person. So, um, uh, definitely go and speak to her. Go and follow her wherever you want to. Um, not in the street though. Go follow her on Instagram or LinkedIn or wherever it is. Um, and maybe just like we've said before, I don't know, send her a little message or put a post on saying, really enjoyed listening to you on Truth, Lies and Work, because that helps all of us and makes us all feel really lovely and loved.
Leanne ElliottYes, it does. All of those links are in the show notes along with everything you need to find Dr. Enya Doyle. We'll be back next Tuesday with another episode of This Week in Work where we bring you our news roundup, our hot take from an industry expert like Dr. Enya Doyle, and our world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery, where I answer all the questions that you put to me. But if there's anything around harassment in work, I'm going to defer you to this episode.
Al ElliottGood thinking. Right, anything, any other business, Le, or should we let these good people go?
Leanne ElliottBusiness has concluded.
Al ElliottSee you soon. Have a great weekend. Bye-bye.