When a customer makes a sexually suggestive comment, Sarah Tracey says it can be a hurtful, embarrassing and tough to deal with.
A new online training program created by the Ontario government and the Ontario Restaurant Hotel and Motel Association (ORHMA) is trying to prevent situations like these from happening.
“You obviously have to deal with your customers, but you don't spend the quality time that you want to spend with your customers because you feel uncomfortable, so I would just shy away from the situation,” she says.
The program called “It’s Your Shift” offers tools and techniques to those being harassed.
“The training covers sexual harassment from employee to employee, customer to customer, employee to customer because there's multi-layers where sexual harassment can occur,” says Fatima Finnegan, a spokesperson for ORHMA.
The program will be immediately incorporated into the Georgian College hospitality curriculum.
“I think it's a rather organic process that we will adopt this training in order to make students more job ready for when they graduate from our programs,” says Bryan Hunt, a professor at the college.
Some say anything to stop the harassment is welcome, even if it's too late for some.
“I've seen it happen and I’ve had it happen to me,” says Afton Dunn, a former server. “It was one of the underlying factors of why I left the industry.”
To learn more about the free program you can click here.
