…‘Our prehistoric banter is not acceptable in a modern world’… the public apology  from Sky Sports presenter Richard Keys having tendered his resignation,  must be resounding around many a workplace this week.  Sky leadership have been united in following the policy line on ‘unacceptable’ behaviour by firing one staff member and accepting the resignation of another -  regardless of their talent , experience or popularity.

But many employers will still remain uncertain as to what constitutes ‘acceptable’ or ‘not acceptable’ in terms of workplace ‘banter’ and therefore hesitant about dealing with it. Acas have 20,000 visits a month to download information from their website on bullying and harassment – a clear indication that managers find this area far from straightforward. And often the waters are muddied by retorts and counter arguments, in this case comments from Gray and Keys that ‘it happens everywhere’; ‘it’s just a bit of banter, a bit of the ‘old boys/ lads / locker-room ’ culture’; ‘ ‘others are in no position to judge’; “apologies have been accepted so no harm done”

But the law is clear - comments about a person’s gender reflecting on their ability to do a job are based on a prejudice not facts. So why do many managers find it so hard to deal with these incidents when they occur?

The Sky incident touches a lot of insecurities about ourselves and work.  Have we ‘lost our sense of humour’? Who wants to be seen as the one who can’t ‘take a joke’?  We want to make friends, be liked, to fit in and we may feel very uncomfortable directly challenging such behaviour for fear of being perceived as having lost our perspective? (I can’t quite bring myself to draw on Katie Hopkins astounding BBC Question Time performance on 27th Jan…)

But look at what has  come to light with the Sky case...once one ‘indiscretion ‘ had been uncovered there were suddenly examples of many more, pointing to a potential culture of sexism within the organisation that had not previously been challenged.

By ‘ignoring’ this behaviour or accepting it as harmless banter, organisations enable this culture to evolve. Sky Sports had clearly not attempted to change or challenge this behaviour and perhaps even endorsed it as part of their public image -until these incidents, (fuelled by easy exposure via social networking) were broadcast?   The fact that these behaviours were ‘never intended to be broadcast’ is a hollow mitigation and implies an element of tolerance, which should be unacceptable in today’s workplace.

Let’s hope the Sky case goes some way towards changing behind-closed-doors behaviour and acts as a wake up call to managers everywhere to deal with inappropriate workplace behaviour.