Six lessons we can learn from Gregg Wallace’s travails

First, full personal disclosure. I was born in 1964, like Gregg Wallace. I support a Championship football team and my first job was in a greengrocers (mine was for 50p an hour). I have always been a big fan of MasterChef and think Wallace’s irreverent style has been part of that. I want people from a variety of backgrounds on our TV screens. We don’t have many Millwall fans whose Wiki entry says they’ve been involved in hooliganism.

Then some professional disclosure; I was an employment lawyer for many years and set up a consultancy where we often work with high profile employees who have transgressed and whose employers want them to have a second chance. I’ve personally done hundreds of one-to-one sessions – many with people who find themselves in a position similar to Wallace’s. We’re told we have impact.

This is a particularly interesting time to be writing a blog like this because in October all UK employers came under a new duty: to take steps proactively to prevent sexual harassment. The sorts of things Wallace is alleged to have done are now placed on a par with other risks (like fire) that can be damaging to the health and safety of your people.

There are probably hundreds of things to learn; I’ve restricted it to six and tried to place them in timeline order.

Of course, I don’t know exactly what happened in this case, and there’s always the problem trying to draw conclusions when talking or writing about sexual harassment and misconduct: the huge range of behaviours covered from Weinstein, Savile and Al Fayed at one end, through to an occasional misplaced comment, obviously meant lightheartedly.

1. Act promptly: taking allegations seriously from the start

When an employer (and for these purposes let’s say this means someone senior – someone in the leadership team) first learns that they have a high-profile employee who may have acted inappropriately, they have to take it seriously. They need to take action. It’s not enough to say that no-one has made a formal complaint. Now, remember, there’s a new duty to take steps to eradicate sexual harassment. If someone shouts ‘Fire!’ no-one asks whether they’re raising the issue formally.

2. Conducting investigations: a person-centred and trauma-informed approach

Taking it seriously is going to involve some form of investigation. The employer needs to take a person-centred approach that’s fair as between all the individuals involved. This needs care. It’s really important your investigator is properly trained and emotionally intelligent; they have to build trust quickly. We’ve learnt that someone independent can help. Certainly an investigator who is experienced and senior enough to detach themselves from the narrative that others may want them to follow. Importantly, they also need to understand that people on the receiving end of sexual abuse often have a distorted recollection of events. Trauma can disrupt memory formation and retrieval, causing gaps and inconsistencies; it can also create intense emotions, for example of fear, anxiety or shame.  

3. Deciding credibility: navigating ‘he said, she said’ cases

If, as is often the case, there are no witnesses or corroborating evidence and we have a ‘he said, she said’ situation: only two people actually know what happened. Here the investigator broadly has one key task: to decide who they believe – who they find more credible and why. Or their job may be to provide whoever’s making that decision for the employer with all the background evidence they need to make it. My strong sense, from years of experience, is that investigators and employers shy away from making difficult decisions. They use a lack of corroborating evidence or the lack of a formal complaint as an excuse to take no action. I don’t think that can work any more – under the new law.  

4. Addressing credible complaints: concrete steps to prevent repetition

It may be that an employer does not dismiss someone about whom there have been credible complaints. If that happens, if they want to be seen to be taking the complaint seriously, they need to take concrete steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

My first tip is for real, behavioural work to be done with that person. For me, this involves one main element: the person must engage with the question, ‘how do you think she was feeling at that moment?’.

‘I don’t know’ isn’t an acceptable answer. You may need to ask the question multiple ways. A transgressor needs to carry forward the idea that there is only one benchmark that matters and that’s how the (normally junior) people around them are feeling when they behave like this.

My second is for a minder/coach system. There are situations, and MasterChef may have been one, where employers insist that a transgressor needs to continue to interact with junior people. And perhaps to continue to be authentic and themself. This is clearly a risk that needs to be managed. I’d suggest that someone, ideally someone the transgressor trusts, is with them as they go about their work. Not necessarily constantly, but often enough to make a difference. Interacting with them – helping them to be a safer version of themselves. Importantly too the minder can be available to others in the workplace: others need to be able to approach him or her with their concerns. Yes, this is going to be costly, but it could avoid a situation like we’re now in.  

5. Fostering a community of accountability: everyone’s role in prevention

Avoiding harassment is about building a community; it’s about everyone knowing that they have a responsibility. For me this is the single most important message. Training and similar cultural efforts need to be focused not just on how people behave, but on how we all react. The main focus must be on ensuring that people feel safe saying something; hopefully that they see it as part of their job to do so. The old adage is true: it’s when good people do nothing that we have a problem.

The great thing about the new duty on employers is that the onus is no longer on junior women who are being subjected to harassment, probably freelancers in this industry, to complain. What the last 50 odd years (since sexual harassment became unlawful) have taught us is that they won’t, they can’t complain. The onus is now on the Jon Torodes, Marcus Wareings and Monica Galettis …… it’s on the transgressor’s respected peers. It’s on the ‘middle class women of a certain age’ too. The point that hopefully Wallace now sees is that they are the people in workplaces who feel safe raising concerns.

And, of course, it’s on the employers (which takes us back to point one).

6. What we need from transgressors: curiosity, openness, and accountability

Finally, what do we need from transgressors when complaints are raised about them? We need them to drop the defensiveness. This can be really difficult because of the emotions, the stress, the isolation that they are feeling. All of which Wallace has alluded to. But as he also said himself, ‘we’re all different’.

We’ve already said that we need transgressors to grasp that the key is to understand how their behaviour is landing – with people who are different. So, when they hear that something’s landed badly, we want them to be curious about that: open to learning about how what they’re doing is landing?

And often, we need them to apologise. Sometimes that may be enough. Particularly if it’s an apology that feels honest and heartfelt. One that suggests the person wants to change. You can judge Wallace’s for yourself.