I was groped during my banking internship

I commented earlier about how I was sexually harassed by HR. Most of the HR department at the bank where this happened were female, and I am aware of the same thing happening at other banks. While it is certainly the case that banks need to be more diverse in terms of gender as well as in terms of race (in every bank I have worked for there has been a striking lack of UK black males, other than in jobs such as security), I don't think that increasing diversity will make the problem of workplace harassment and abuse go away. What is needed is a change in culture and power structures within banks, as this is what allows harassment to occur. If alpha male managers were replaced by alpha female managers, sexual harassment would still occur, but just in different ways.

In most banks I have worked for, senior management have been skewed (sometimes considerably) towards people from the country where the bank is headquartered. I agree that most management and senior management are men (in my experience I haven't come across any banks where 90% of managers and 98% of senior managers are male – I don't say this isn't the case in any bank, but would be interested to hear what banks have so many males in management, and I guess to an extent it depends how senior management is defined). I think the way to improve diversity is through transparency, i.e. how many people are applying for roles, what are the reasons why people are being turned down for positions. Problems to be considered with government intervention include i) some people might end up getting jobs they aren't the best candidate for, ii) banks may move jobs out of the country if quotas are brought in, iii) banks may massage statistics by putting females in rotating non-exec director roles or figurehead Chairperson roles, while the real powerful executive roles remain filled by males (this is common), iv) should government intervention only apply to females, or should it also apply to other areas, e.g. BAME, or areas where males are under-represented, e.g. HR?

Well done for speaking up!
I worked for an Investment Bank last year and I felt shocked how male-dominated it was.
While my team was friendly and welcoming it simply is not healthy to have an environment were 90% of staff and 98% of senior staff are men and at that white men.
Diversity is the key to inclusion and a fostering of respect.
Clearly, banks are not changing quickly enough so I think the government needs to step in. Cultures need to change. The City is the last bastion of the Old Boys Club.

Title should read: how my groper escaped to work his trades elsewhere....

I completely agree with this – at any bank I've worked for HR act as a tool of management. In most of these banks, if a complaint of sexual harassment was made against a senior manager HR would say there's nothing they can do. I've seen HR staff who have received a complaint go on to act as a witness for the bank and the accused where the matter has proceeded to court! On the other hand, I've seen junior or mid-level staff investigated over trivial matters or workplace conflicts which are not sexual in nature. I've seen HR encourage females to embellish, fabricate and sexualise complaints, and I've seen HR add elements to complaints which the complainant didn't complain about in order to make the complaint seem more serious. Quite often managers, who have themselves harassed women, join in with the finger pointing. Cases like this usually result in the accused male being sexually harassed by HR and often result in psychological injury to the accused. This is done so that HR can say they are 'taking complaints seriously', but can also be due to abuse of power by HR.

The long-term solution to this needs to be to change the power structure in banks – until then there will be claims of sexual harassment which aren't investigated and also cases where males are wrongly accused or where accusations are embellished or not handled properly.

In the short-term, HR need to be able to investigate complaints fairly and not be influenced by senior management or political considerations. They need to take not just accusations seriously, but also the response to the accusations. They need to not be afraid to investigate senior management accused of sexual harassment, but they also need to not be afraid to not uphold accusations where this is merited. Too often HR start with a pre-conceived idea of who the guilty or innocent party is and work towards substantiating this, rather than evaluate the evidence and apportion responsibility accordingly. It is also important to help the accuser and the accused move on once the matter has been dealt with. The majority of these type of situations in the workplace are best dealt with via some form of mediation. Also, line managers shouldn't be too quick to pass on conflicts in their team to HR, they should try to resolve them first (unless of course the line manager is the one being accused, in which case a more senior manager should look into the matter before passing to HR).

The problem is that people in HR (and most of them are women) very often take the side of senior management for various reasons you can think of. The intern in the article was lucky to have a supportive HR team behind her, but I'm sure there are many cases where people were made to choose between keeping their dream jobs and being treated fairly and respectfully. Things go unreported when people know they are unlikely to be getting any support within the organisation.