Did You Hear the Latest Off-Color Joke?

Did You Hear the Latest Joke? So much for the effectiveness of sensitivity and diversity training. Rather than dying down, sexually offensive remarks in the workplace occurred almost twice as often in 2007 than in 2006, according to a telephone survey of women employees by Boston-based Novations Group. Novations says 38 percent of women heard colleagues utter sexually demeaning comments, up from 22 percent in 2006. About 45 percent of men say they heard colleagues make such remarks. More men than women (44 percent vs. 24 percent) overheard co-workers using racial slurs and ethnic slurs (40 percent vs. 25 percent)—a trend that has held true to past form. Workers with more education and higher income were less likely to be objects of ridicule. Predictably, workers between 18 and 34 are more than twice as likely to hear age-related pejoratives as those 55 and older.