This new poll was designed to explore how job-related trauma from 9/11, trauma related to losing a job, and working outside the office, such as on commission or doing paid work from home, effect CEOs’ ability to work.
Women perceive more job trauma than men, especially related to 9/11. Female respondents saw job trauma as more significant than male respondents did. The impact also included a “double standard” for work-related trauma — men reported more trauma than women but were not more likely to leave their jobs. The impact included a greater “can’t handle” label for male respondents.
Gallup Poll: Women make job-related traumas worse: What about white men? Both male and female respondents felt the most workplace trauma related to 9/11.
Men and women also perceive less job trauma than they said they had been in the past. Both groups did feel trauma but their estimates were similar to the results.
When it comes to specific events that impact executives, those that saw work-related trauma saw a great deal of it. For example, a 40-year-old male CEO who had “work-related trauma” from 9/11, lost a job and took on a business-building role saw “work-related trauma” rise from 6% in 2007 to 26% today, according to the survey. That percentage rises to 37% for one CEO with a dual income who took a more “work-related trauma” role, and climbs to 51% for another survey respondent who saw significant trauma from 9/11, lost a job and then took on a larger leadership role.
The survey noted, however, that those who surveyed as respondents but whose reactions in the survey were significantly different than their actual response are “de minimis.”
This might be interpreted as somewhat contradictory for those who surveyed as respondents. They reported feeling greater trauma than previous survey respondents did. But they also reported experiencing less work-related trauma than other men, women and white executives who did not survey as responders did. On this point, the study appears to support previous Gallup polls showing that white men and executives of all racial and ethnic backgrounds do not share enough workplace trauma.
What they might have collectively found is in four words, “coworker rape.” While Gallup explicitly reported that respondents felt that they needed help from coworkers, those who identified as survivors of harassment reported that they felt that their teammates would “cover for their wrongdoing” or do anything but “express disapproval.”
Of the six types of sexual harassment respondents reported they had, three fall into the category of “coworker rape.” These include accusations from colleagues that men have sexually harassed women, comments from coworkers that women are “too attractive” or “ugly” or are “too soft,” or that women are just “too talkative.”
Read the full report here.
View the past research on different kinds of abuse, harassment and violence at Gallup.