58% of women say they have experienced harassment in their workplace, a new survey from HR consultancy HR Buddy reveals.
The survey also reveals that three out of four respondents said they are not confident that they will not experience harassment in the future.
Of the women who say they have been harassed, only four in ten reported it.
Of those who did report it, one in four said the employer dealt with the issue "very well", while one in four said it was not dealt with at all and half said that the employer "did not deal with it very well".
HR Buddy defines harassment is unwanted conduct which is related to discrimination or sexual harassment which is unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical contact or unwelcome propositions.
When asked what had been most impacted as a result of the harassment, 31% choose their mental health, while 24% choose morale and 13% choose attendance.
Productivity and impact on personal relationships both polled at 11%, while 9% said career progression was impacted.
The survey also revealed that nearly 30% of women who are harassed leave that workplace because of it.
The founder and CEO of HR Buddy, Damien McCarthy, said the poll was an important starting point in what he hoped would lead to more joined up thinking that would deal with the cultural problems we have in workplaces with regard to the treatment of women.
"It is very clear that much harassment happens in silence. Only four in 10 of those women who said they had been harassed at work said that they reported it," he stated.
He noted that three in four survey respondents said their workplaces had not invested in training and educating their people in this area and confidence in the possibility of harassment not happening in future was very low.
"There is an argument that more initiatives and supports need to be put in place to help employers positively work through this and workplaces need help in training their people and shifting this culture in the right direction," Mr McCarty said.
"Over 1.1 million people are employed by SME businesses in this country and more needs to be done from a government level to help these employers achieve a cultural shift and change in standards in the workplace through training and education of not just employees, but the employers themselves," he added.
