Promising absolute confidentiality
«This stays between us» is the most damaging sentence in the whole conversation. You cannot keep it, and when the case moves the person will feel betrayed by the one individual they trusted.
Sensitive report
What should you do when an employee reports harassment?
When someone reports alleged harassment, your role is not to investigate or to qualify the facts. It is to receive the account properly, record it in writing, and pass it on without delay to the person responsible. Three concrete duties: listen without evaluating, promise nothing you do not control, and never let the report stop with you.
Adrien VasseurUpdated
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The situation when someone reports harassment
Thomas asks for «five minutes». He closes the door, hesitates, apologises for bothering you, then describes a colleague’s behaviour: repeated remarks, being cut out of things, one specific episode he tells badly because he is upset. He almost always adds the same sentence: «I don’t want to cause trouble, please don’t say anything for now.» You did not prepare for this conversation, it has already run forty minutes, and what you say in the next five minutes will have lasting legal and human consequences.
Why it is difficult when someone reports harassment
You are simultaneously listening and under obligation. The request for confidentiality is sincere and you cannot grant it as stated: a report triggers duties that are not yours to waive. There is also a posture problem — every ordinary managerial reflex becomes harmful here. Seeking context reads as doubt, reassuring reads as minimising, offering a quick fix short-circuits the process. And the person named is often someone you know and like.
The most common mistakes when someone reports harassment
Trying to contextualise the behaviour
«He’s like that with everyone», «he’s going through a hard time»: even said without intent, this lands as taking a side. Context is not your job here, and saying it out loud is enough to close the account down.
Investigating on the spot
Firing off verification questions, asking for proof, interviewing colleagues the next day: you are not an investigator, and an informal enquiry can compromise the official process as well as expose the person who came to you.
Arranging a confrontation or mediation
Bringing both people together «to clear the air» is contraindicated in alleged harassment: mediation assumes two symmetrical positions, which is precisely not the hypothesis here.
Writing nothing down
Leaving without a dated record means everything that follows rests on memory. Record the reported facts, the dates and the words the person used, without adding your assessment.
An approach that works when someone reports harassment
Set the frame in one sentence, at the start
Before the account gets going: «I’m going to listen to all of it. One thing first: if what you describe falls under harassment, I can’t keep it to myself — and I’ll tell you exactly who I have to pass it to.» That early honesty prevents the sense of betrayal later.
Listen without evaluating, with neutral prompts
One family of prompts only: «What happened next?», «Can you tell me exactly what was said?», «Was anyone else there?» No question that starts with «why» — they land as challenges even when they are not meant that way.
Record factually, then read it back
Write during or immediately after: dates, places, reported words in quotation marks, any witnesses. Then read it back: «Is this faithful to what you told me?» You are documenting without qualifying — the word «harassment» is a legal characterisation that is not yours to apply.
Escalate immediately, and say that you are
State exactly what happens next: who you are passing this to, when, and what follows. Then check immediate safety: «Are you in direct contact with this person this week?» A precautionary change to working arrangements may be necessary without prejudging anything.