What to do when an employee reports harassment (and the mistakes to avoid)

‍In January 2026, the EEOC voted to rescind its 2024 Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace. The Commission voted 2-1, removing the guidance in its entirety. Guidance is not binding law, so the legal definition of harassment under Title VII did not change. But the message many employers took from the headlines was that the pressure had eased.

It hasn't. The rescission does not significantly change federal law, and employers must still comply with state and local laws, which are often more protective of workers than federal rules. As the EEOC itself said, rescinding the guidance does not give employers license to engage in unlawful harassment. Every complaint still needs to be taken seriously and investigated.‍

So the real question for HR, legal, and compliance teams isn't whether the rules changed. It's whether your organization handles a report well when one lands. The data says many don't.

Most harassment never gets reported

Harassment is more common than internal case numbers suggest, because much of it never surfaces. Traliant's 2026 State of Workplace Harassment Report found that 38% of employees had witnessed harassment in the past five years, and 21% had experienced it themselves. The survey covered more than 2,100 full-time U.S. employees and was conducted in December 2025.

The reporting gap is what should concern compliance teams. About 22% of employees who witnessed harassment said they did not report what they saw, and among those who did raise concerns, 38% were dissatisfied with how their employer handled it. So even when people overcome the hurdle of speaking up, nearly four in ten come away feeling let down by the response.

Two findings explain why people stay silent, and both point at the employer. One in three employees (33%) said they would only report harassment if they could do so anonymously. And among employees who feel unprotected, 71% cite fear of retaliation as the primary reason they do not feel safe. The global picture matches: a 2022 survey of 74,000 workers worldwide found that 23% had experienced violence or harassment at work, yet nearly half never told anyone. ‍

Read those numbers together. People don't report because they fear retaliation, because they don't trust that it's safe to be named, and because past experience tells them the response won't satisfy them anyway. When an employee finally does come forward, your response either confirms those fears or breaks the cycle.

The five mistakes employers keep making

The same five mistakes surface again and again, usually in the first moments after a report, before any formal investigation begins.

1. Treating the report as a reputation problem. The instinct to protect a high-revenue executive or the company's image skews everything that follows. The fix is to center the reporting employee first: acknowledge what happened, commit to looking into it, and ask what they need to feel safe.

2. Minimizing or dismissing it. "That's just how Bob is" or "he's from a different era" tells the employee their report won't be taken seriously, and it ignores the power dynamic at play. Whether Bob is a law firm partner talking to a new paralegal or a manager who controls someone's shifts changes everything about how the comment lands.

3. Taking actions that punish the victim. Separating the two people during an investigation is right, but many employers do it backwards: they send the person who reported home on leave, transfer them, or move them to a worse shift. If the reporting employee did nothing wrong, why should they bear the disruption? Beyond the message it sends to everyone watching, it can create a second and often stronger legal claim. Changing the accuser's duties or location can be read as an adverse employment action and a sign of retaliation, which tends to carry higher damages. If something has to change, move the accused.

4. Mishandling the investigation. Attempts to protect the company or the accused tend to backfire. Use a neutral third-party investigator, give them full access, and don't let the person under investigation control who they can talk to. Investigations that drag on for weeks leave the reporting employee feeling abandoned. Set a clear timeline and check in regularly.

5. Neglecting training. Standard harassment training often skips the parts that matter most: how power dynamics enable misconduct, and how trauma shapes the way people report. Someone may disclose only part of their story at first, or change details, as a trauma response. Trauma-informed training helps HR teams interview and investigate without causing further harm.

What good handling looks like

Avoiding those mistakes points straight at what to do instead. Take every report seriously, regardless of how it arrives or what the regulatory mood is. Center the reporting employee from the first conversation. Separate the parties by moving the accused, not the accuser. Bring in a neutral investigator, follow your written policy, and keep the employee informed so the process never goes dark. And note that the legal baseline hasn't dropped as far as the headlines imply: the Bostock decision remains valid precedent, so Title VII still protects against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, with state and local protections often reaching further.

None of this works without a reporting channel people actually trust. With a third of employees willing to come forward only if they can stay anonymous, and fear of retaliation the top reason people feel unsafe, the channel itself is part of the response. Employees need a way to raise concerns that doesn't route through the person they're worried about, that protects them from retaliation, and that lets them follow up safely even when they reported anonymously. That trust is what closes the gap between the harassment that happens and the harassment you hear about.

A structured intake and case management process gives HR and compliance teams that channel, plus the documented timeline and audit trail that matter more, not less, when guidance shifts and the baseline falls back on state and local law. If you're reviewing how your organization handles employee concerns, it's worth looking at HR grievance management software built for employee relations and how a dedicated HR grievance process keeps reports moving from first contact to resolution.

The guidance changed. The obligation didn't. And the employees deciding right now whether it's worth saying anything are watching how you respond.

Sources

1. William Phillips, "Five Common Mistakes To Avoid When An Employee Reports Harassment," Forbes Business Council (June 15, 2026): https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2026/06/15/five-common-mistakes-to-avoid-when-an-employee-reports-harassment/
2. Traliant, "The State of Workplace Harassment: 2026 Report": https://training.traliant.com/2026-State-of-Harassment-Report
3. ILO, Lloyd's Register Foundation & Gallup, "Experiences of Violence and Harassment at Work: A global first survey" (2022): https://www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/wcmsp5/groups/public/%40dgreports/%40dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_863095.pdf
4. National Law Review / Epstein Becker Green, "Harassment Prevention in 2026": https://natlawreview.com/article/harassment-prevention-2026
5. Jackson Lewis, "EEOC Rescinds Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace": https://www.jacksonlewis.com/insights/eeoc-rescinds-enforcement-guidance-harassment-workplace