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  • Me Too and Time's Up have highlighted

  • that harassment and discrimination are a shockingly common part

  • of many people's lived reality,

  • and that this reality extends into the workplace.

  • Whether in tech or finance, sports or the service industry,

  • every day we seem to hear another story about an abuse of power

  • or another grossly inappropriate workplace behavior.

  • People are furious.

  • They're taking to Twitter and social media to voice that this must change.

  • But it's time to move beyond the hashtag.

  • It's time for us to report harassment and discrimination

  • to those who can fix this mess.

  • And it's time for us to talk about harassment

  • in a more inclusive way:

  • not just about sexual harassment,

  • but to encourage people to come forward

  • about harassment and discrimination based on other characteristics

  • such as age, disability or ethnicity.

  • Because only together can we fix

  • the underlying causes and consequences of harassment.

  • You see, most of us will,

  • at some point in our lives,

  • experience workplace harassment or discrimination.

  • Research shows that particularly women, people of color

  • and people who openly identify as LGBTQI are likely to be targeted,

  • and for some people, this is a pervasive and persistent part of their reality.

  • And for most of these people --

  • 98 percent according to some studies --

  • most of these people will never speak up and tell their employer.

  • Too often, harassment and discrimination is a lonely and isolating experience,

  • but we need to help people out from under their desks.

  • We need to empower people to have a voice.

  • The reasonable first question that everybody asks

  • once they've been harassed is "What do I do now?"

  • And this is what I want to help you with.

  • Navigating the barriers to reporting can be absolutely dizzying.

  • How can we speak up in a society

  • that too often discredits or diminishes our experiences?

  • How can we speak up in a society

  • that is likely to be retributive towards us?

  • How can we deal with the silencing that goes on all around us?

  • Making matters worse,

  • often our memories are the only evidence we have of what happened.

  • Now, here's where I can come in.

  • I'm a memory scientist,

  • and I specialize in how we remember important emotional events.

  • I've particularly focused on how the memory interview process

  • can severely impact the evidentiary quality of reports that we produce.

  • A bad interview can lead you to forget details or misremember them

  • while a good interview can forever change your life for the better.

  • After looking at lab reports and working,

  • studying this issue both in the courtroom and in research settings,

  • I've dissected all the different things that can go wrong with our memories

  • that can really threaten your case.

  • And now I'm turning my attention to helping people tackle

  • recording and reporting of workplace harassment and discrimination.

  • There's three things that I've learned from my research on this

  • that you can immediately apply

  • if you've been harassed or discriminated against at work.

  • I want to help you turn your memory into evidence --

  • evidence that even a memory skeptic like me

  • is unlikely to find fault with.

  • First of all, James Comey had it right.

  • The former head of the FBI used to sit in his car,

  • lock himself in after meetings with the president

  • and write down absolutely everything he could remember about what happened.

  • The now-famous recordings proved to be quite useful later on.

  • Be like Comey.

  • Now, you don't need to lock yourself into your car to do this,

  • but please, immediately after something happens,

  • I want you to contemporaneously record what happened.

  • And do this before talking to anyone else about it.

  • Because as soon as your share your story

  • with friends or family or colleagues or therapists,

  • you have the potential to distort or change your memory of the event.

  • Uncontaminated, contemporaneous evidence is worth gold.

  • Second: the type of evidence matters.

  • Sure, you can do a handwritten note of what happens,

  • but how do you prove when you wrote it?

  • Instead, pull out your computer or smartphone

  • and make a note that's time-stamped,

  • where you can prove this was recorded at this time.

  • Contemporaneous, time-stamped evidence is better.

  • Finally, make sure what you're writing down is actually relevant.

  • Too often, we see that people bring out Facebook messages,

  • they bring out time-stamped pieces of evidence,

  • but sure, they're not particularly relevant,

  • they're not particularly useful.

  • It's easy to write an emotional, unstructured account of what happened --

  • understandable because it's an emotional experience --

  • but those might not actually be the details that matter later on

  • for an investigation.

  • Write down this list.

  • I want you to keep track of this and simply fill in the blanks.

  • First of all, what happened?

  • In as much detail as possible,

  • describe the situation,

  • and do it on the day it happened if at all possible.

  • Second, who was there?

  • Were there any witnesses?

  • This becomes crucial potentially later on.

  • What exact time and date did this happen?

  • What location? Where did this happen?

  • Who did you tell after the event?

  • How did it make you feel during and after it happened?

  • And is there any other evidence such as WhatsApps, photos or emails

  • that might lend more credibility to your case.

  • These are all details that are incredibly easy to record contemporaneously

  • but are also incredibly easy to forget later on.

  • Humans, according to research, often overestimate their ability

  • to remember important emotional details later on.

  • Assume that you're going to forget.

  • Assume you have to write it down.

  • Now, these three pieces of advice are a good start,

  • but of course they don't overcome a lot of the other barriers to reporting.

  • According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission,

  • which published a report in 2018,

  • there's one key recommendation to overcome some of the other fears

  • often associated with reporting these kinds of incidents to your employer.

  • One piece of advice that they made?

  • Have an online, anonymous reporting tool.

  • Only that way, they say,

  • can you truly overcome many of the fears associated with reporting.

  • Now, in line with this,

  • and informed by what was happening all around me

  • and taking and applying the memory science,

  • the science that I had been doing for many years,

  • I sat down with a number of people

  • and we together created TalkToSpot.com.

  • Spot is an online, anonymous reporting tool

  • that helps you record and report workplace harassment and discrimination.

  • It allows you to do it anonymously,

  • it allows you to do it for free,

  • and it's completely evidence-based.

  • You don't have to talk to a person,

  • there's no fear of judgment,

  • and you can do it whenever and wherever you need.

  • Now you have the power to walk through an evidence-based memory interview.

  • Now, this is called a cognitive interview.

  • This is the same technique that police use when they're doing their job properly.

  • So in best-case scenarios,

  • people who are being asked about important emotional events

  • are being asked in line with the cognitive interview.

  • Now, this walks you through all the relevant information

  • so that at the end, after you've talked to the bot --

  • which is an automatic messaging system --

  • after you've talked to the bot,

  • it generates a PDF record that's time-stamped and securely signed

  • that you can keep for yourself as evidence in case you want to share it later,

  • or you can submit it to your employer right away.

  • And in line with recommendations,

  • you can submit it to your employer anonymously.

  • But a reporting tool is only as useful as the audience that's listening.

  • So if your employer is truly committed to change,

  • we've decided to also offer them the tool to respond.

  • So if organizations work with us

  • and are truly committed to doing something

  • about workplace harassment and discrimination,

  • they're also able to respond to you even if you've chosen to stay anonymous.

  • We think it's important that you can work together with your employer

  • to tackle this issue.

  • We think that everybody wins when we bring light into this dark issue.

  • Whether it happens to you or to someone you know,

  • recording and reporting what happened

  • can really improve how we talk about these issues.

  • And if you're an organization,

  • this is a call to give your employees access

  • to better and more effective reporting mechanisms.

  • We know that the current methods that are used in most organizations

  • don't work effectively.

  • It's time to change that if you're committed to inclusion and diversity.

  • It's time for us to celebrate our diversity.

  • It's time for us to give a voice