Flirting or telling a lewd joke around the water cooler may win you popularity points with some of your co-workers, but such behaviour actually lowers overall workplace morale, Canadian researchers say.A study that included nearly 300 subjects found that 60 per cent of respondents experienced some form of sexual behaviour -- such as flirting, sexual jokes or sexual innuendo -- in the workplace.
About one quarter of those employees said they viewed such behaviour positively.
However, regardless of whether employees enjoyed a little sexually-charged banter, workers were more likely to withdraw from work, feel depressed or feel less valued simply by being exposed to sexual behaviour.
The findings were largely replicated in a second survey of more than 1,000 subjects.
The results surprised the researchers, according to study co-author Jennifer Berdahl, who expected to find negative psychological effects only among those who did not enjoy such behaviour.
"We were expecting that people who enjoyed this behaviour at work and experienced it frequently would show some kind of a bounce," Berdahl said on CTV.ca. "You would think that something that is enjoyed and experienced frequently would also help improve things, like your commitment to your job, feeling valued at work or social bonding with your co-workers."
Berdahl, an associate professor of organizational behaviour at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, conducted the research alongside Karl Aquino of the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business.
According to Berdahl, even if some co-workers enjoy sexual behaviour, the attitudes of their less-receptive colleagues could bring down overall workplace morale.
Moreover, sexual behaviour could act almost as a "stealth poison," whereby it negatively impacts workers indirectly or on a subconscious level.
"We thought that if this is just inappropriate behaviour, even if it's fun or flattering, it could serve as a sort of stealth poison. That is, directly but at a subconscious or implicit level, negatively affecting people by bringing up themes of dominance and submission or vulnerability and shame," Berdahl said.
"Sexuality is a very private matter. You don't know what people's histories are or what it's evoking for them when a sexual joke is told in the workplace."
Indeed, the themes of dominance or shame are supported when the statistics are divided along gender lines.
The researchers found that about half of men reported enjoying such behaviour, compared to only 10 per cent of women.
That was of little surprise to the researchers, who wrote in their paper that men are still more likely to be in positions of power within the workplace, including being in more senior jobs, being held in higher esteem by co-workers and earning more money.
"So basically, the less powerful you feel and the less you feel like you can retaliate or respond without incurring more harm, the more negative the experience is going to be," Berdahl said. "And so I think that's why we find those differences between men's and women's appraisals of the events."
On the flip side, the findings also flouted the male stereotype that men like to engage in so-called locker-room talk -- tales of their sexual exploits.
The study also found that men did not like it when other men engaged in sexual behaviour around them.
"I think a lot of people assume that, 'well, if it's just us guys, anything goes,'" Berdahl said.
Despite the fact that only a minority of employees surveyed enjoyed sexual behaviour at work and that such behaviour led to overall low morale, the findings do not suggest that management should be policing conversation in the workplace, Berdahl said.
"I think it's just more sage advice for all employees in the workplace that unless you know the person really well and are absolutely certain that this is not going to offend or trigger anything negative in them, why bring it up in the workplace?" she said. "What place does it have there?"
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