Proceedings of ISER 29 th International Conference, Dubai, UAE, 22 nd April 2016, ISBN: 978-93-85973-83-3 21 GENDER DIFFERENCES IN PERCEPTION OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT AMONG NIGERIAN BANKS’ EMPLOYEES SHUKURAT MORONKE BELLO Department of Business Administration and Entrepreneurship Bayero University Kano, Nigeria E-mail: smbello.bus@buk.edu.ng Abstract- Banks in Nigeria need to understand the perceptual difference in both male and female employees to better develop adequate policy on sexual harassment. This study investigated the perceptual differences on sexual harassment among male and female bank employees in two commercial cities (Kano and Lagos) of Nigeria.Two hundred and seventy five employees (149 males, 126 females) were conveniently sampled for this study. A survey design with a questionnaire adapted from Sexual Experience Questionnaire (SEQ) comprises of three dimension scalesof sexual harassment was used. The hypotheses were tested with independent samples t-test. The resultsindicated no perceptual differences in labelling sexual harassment clues between male and female bank employees in Nigeria. Thus, the study recommends that bank managers should support and establish the tone for sexual harassment-free workplace. Keywords- Gender Harassment, Sexual Coercion, Unwanted Sexual Attention, Workplace. I. INTRODUCTION Sexual harassment has been identified in the behavioural literature as one of the serious interpersonal workplace deviance behaviour (Appelbaum, et al., 2007). It has cost organisations millions of dollars resulting from health injury and court cases damages. Studies have shown the pervasiveness of sexual harassment in Nigerian Organisations (Adenugba& Ilupeju 2012; Houreld, 2007;Ladebo, 2003; Ogechukwu, 2013; Taiwo et al., 2014; Yusuf, 2008) which have negative effects on the job outcomes of both males and females.Sexual harassment is one of the grey areas within the Federal law of Nigeria. There is no Federal law in Nigeria that has explicitly penalises sexual harassment at work and no single case of sexual harassment has been known to come before the Nigerian courts (Hersch, 2015; Ladebo, 2003). In Nigeria, organisations and members view sexual harassment as an employer-employee problem, which should be resolved between the parties concerned (Ladebo, 2003).Therefore, it is the responsibility of the management to provide adequate sexual harassment policy. This responsibility requires that managers must shift from the philosophy of treating all employees the same to recognizing perceptual differences and responding to those differences; this is necessary in order to ensure employee retention and achieve greater productivity (Robbins & Judge 2007). Individuals have differing views on how they organize and interpret their sensory impression to activities within their environment; and can result in differences in meaning of sexual harassment issues in the workplace. An individual perception and range of experience may generate ambiguity within the boundaries of sexual harassment. Hence, the importance of adequate management of ethical behaviour in the workplace, therefore, it is the responsibility of organisations is to offer a harassment free environment for their employees and to know when and where it exists in the organization and eliminate it as soon as possible (Gutek, 1993; Nauman&Abbasi 2014; Nwaeke, 2015). Oluade (2001) affirmed that a sector of the Nigerian economy with a high prevalence of sexual harassment is the banking sector. The rising complaints of abuse and sexual harassment in the Nigerian banking industry traceable to the emergence of the new generation bankshave continued to cause concern about questionable labour practices thriving in the sector due to the glut in the labour market (Bangudu, 2009). Banks employees’ attempt to meet the goals and objectives of the bank goes through a lot of stress and challenges (Alooma&Atadiose, 2014). Similarly, bank managers and their directors mandate staff members to attract a certain amount of deposits which put pressure on staff and exposed them to different forms of sexual harassment (Nigerian Best Forum, 2013). A lot of female staff have been sexually assaulted, raped and killed in the bid to achieve the targets, and most have lost their jobs because of the difficulty in achieving such targets (Ogechukwu, 2013). Thus, most victims of sexual harassment in Nigeria are often scared to report due to cultural and customary practices (Fapohunda, 2014). Prevalence of sexual harassment in organisations has adverse effects on the victims, the organisations as well as the society (Ganu & Boateng 2013; Hersch, 2015; Nauman&Abbasi 2014). Harassing behaviours in organisations may result in loss of existing and potential customers, damage to the company’s public image (Icenogle et al., 2002); increased organizational cost which includes legal cost and medical cost, increased employee turnover as well as a reduction in employee productivity (Hersch, 2015).