The Truth About Sexual Harassment in Real Estate Brokerages

Working as a real estate agent can be risky. Most of that risk is attributed to the nuance of an agent's job facilitating home transactions: Agents are in and out of private homes all day, often by themselves, and frequently when meeting with either buyers or sellers they don't know very well.

While those are significant risks that agents face, there's another much more insidious threat to agents that might not be on many brokers' radars. Sexual harassment in the workplace is more widespread than most industry experts think, and it's taking place right underneath the nose of the brokers who are tasked with supervising their agents.

A recent WAV Group study examined agent safety in the workplace and asked questions about what sorts of crimes agents find themselves experiencing. Open houses and private home showings were two big risks that agents say they face, but sexual harassment either from managing brokers, fellow agents, or someone else involved in real estate are more prevalent than most industry experts would guess.

Here's what the survey found.

Sexual harassment and female agents

The survey was conducted with real estate agents, both team members and individual agents, who shared information about their own career experiences, including whether they had ever been the victim of a crime at work. WAV Group broke the survey responses out by gender in order to assess whether there were any patterns unique to male agents or female agents.

Survey results indicated that more than one in twenty female agents (6.7%) have experienced sexual harassment at work, and more than one in ten (10.8%) have experienced harassment. Among the female agents who said they have been the victim of some kind of crime at work, more than one in ten (10.5%) said that the perpetrator was either their managing broker or an agent they work with.

When WAV Group asked respondents where the crime took place, more than one in ten female agents (11.3%) said that the crime took place at their real estate office of employment.

What should brokers do?

The most important step to solving any problem is to acknowledge that it exists. For real estate brokers who believe that sexual harassment is an issue that other industries must tackle (but not real estate), this data should serve as a wake-up call.

After acknowledging that sexual harassment exists and could be happening to agents in their own brokerages, it's critical to take steps that will define clearly what is and is not acceptable behavior from agents, how to report unacceptable behavior, and how that behavior will be handled after reporting.

There are a number of free educational tools that businesses can use to educate their employees about the legalities of sexual harassment in your state. Make sexual harassment training a regular component of your ongoing learning and education, and mandate that agents take courses and pass tests that examine topics such as sexual harassment and hostile work environments.

Reporting policies should be transparent and easy to understand and follow, as well as consistent. They should accommodate the rights of both the accuser and the accused, and brokers should take every precaution to document their actions and consult with a legal expert if they are unsure about how to proceed.

By that same token, it's important to take sexual harassment allegations seriously and to implement a no-tolerance standard in your brokerage for sexual harassment.

Stay tuned to hear more results from the survey and learn when you can read the full report on WAV Group.