If you are reading this because something happened at work, start from the practical truth: harassment changes the room you are standing in. A comment, touch, message, threat, stare, invitation, rota change, or “joke” can suddenly make your desk, shift, WhatsApp group, or after-work event feel unsafe. That is not your failure to be relaxed, clear, friendly, or confident. It is a workplace power problem.
In Germany, sexual harassment and gender-based harassment can fall under the Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz, usually called the AGG. Employers have duties to protect employees from harassment, including harassment by managers, colleagues, customers, contractors, or others connected to work. This article is general information, not legal advice for your case; deadlines and risks can depend on the details. The steps below are about preserving safety and options while you decide what support you want.
Phase 1: The first hour is about safety, not proof
If you are in immediate danger, leave the place if you can, go toward people you trust, and call emergency help if needed. If there is an acute threat to your physical safety, 110 is the police emergency number and 112 is the emergency medical number. You do not need to finish a conversation, be polite, or explain yourself before getting away.
If the harasser is still nearby, consider a short message to someone you trust: “Can you come to reception?” “Please call me now.” “I do not want to be alone with X.” Specific requests work better than a full explanation when you are shaken. This tactic compensates for workplaces that still put women in isolated rooms, late shifts, informal social events, or reporting lines where one powerful person controls access.
If you can, make a first note before memory is pulled apart by meetings, apologies, pressure, or self-doubt. It can be rough. Write the date, time, place, who was present, what happened, the exact words you remember, and what you did next. If you cannot write, record a voice note to yourself and store it somewhere the other person cannot access.
Do not worry yet about making the perfect incident log. Equal Voices Initiative has a fuller guide to general incident-log craft, including memory and impact. Here, the workplace-specific issue is power: you may depend on the person, need the job, fear being labelled difficult, or know witnesses are afraid.
Phase 2: Preserve the workplace record before it moves
Harassment at work often leaves traces in different places. Preserve what you can without breaking workplace rules or putting yourself at fresh risk.
Useful material includes:
- Messages, emails, chat logs, calendar invitations, call records, voice notes, social media messages, and screenshots.
- Shift plans, seating plans, project assignments, rota changes, travel schedules, meeting invitations, or room bookings that show contact patterns.
- Notes about comments made in person, including who heard them and what happened immediately before and after.
- Records of changed treatment after you resisted, objected, avoided contact, or asked for help.
- Medical notes, sick-leave records, or counselling notes if the harassment affected your health, but only share these with advice services after thinking about privacy.
Screenshots are useful, but the key workplace point is that employer-controlled systems can disappear from your view if you are suspended, dismissed, moved, or locked out. Save copies lawfully and cautiously, keeping the date, sender, recipient, and surrounding context visible where you can.
Use a private storage place that the harasser cannot reach. If you share a device, cloud account, password manager, or family computer with someone unsafe, choose a safer route before moving files. If your work device is monitored, do not assume a folder on that device is private.
Phase 3: Build an incident log that understands power
A workplace harassment log is not only a list of incidents. It should show context: who had power, what you depended on, who could see the pattern, and what changed afterwards.
For each entry, include:
- Date, time, location, and whether it was in person, by phone, online, or at a work-related event.
- The person involved and their work relationship to you: manager, colleague, client, trainer, customer, owner, contractor, or external partner.
- What happened, using direct words where you remember them.
- Who saw, heard, entered later, received a message, or noticed your reaction.
- Any immediate effect on work: you left a meeting, changed a shift, avoided a route, asked not to be alone, lost tasks, or were criticized.
- Any health or safety effect: panic, sleep loss, medical appointment, sick leave, fear of travelling home, fear of being alone with the person.
- What you did next and who you told.
This is not about seeming like the perfect complainant. It compensates for systems that often treat one woman’s account as “subjective” until it is surrounded by dates, witnesses, and documents. That burden is unfair. Still, a clear record can help an adviser, Betriebsrat, Gewerkschaft, lawyer, or complaint office understand the pattern faster.
Phase 4: Think carefully about witnesses
Witnesses are not only people who saw the harassment itself. They may be people who noticed you shaking after a meeting, saw the harasser waiting near your workstation, heard a sexual comment, received your message right after, or were told about it before a dispute began.
If you speak to a witness, keep the request low-pressure. You can ask: “Would you write down what you remember from Tuesday’s meeting, in your own words, with the date?” Do not script them or ask them to exaggerate. A short independent note is better than a dramatic statement that looks coordinated.
Also be realistic. Witnesses may fear their own contract, visa status, promotion, rota, probation period, or relationship with a manager. Their hesitation is not proof that you imagined it. It is evidence of the same power structure that made the harassment possible. If someone will not be named, note that they were present, but do not expose them without advice.
Phase 5: Choose who to tell inside work
You do not always have to report harassment to your employer first before getting outside advice. You can speak to a counselling service, union, lawyer, Antidiskriminierungsstelle, or trusted support person before deciding whether to trigger an internal process.
Inside work, possible routes include:
- A line manager, if they are safe and not implicated.
- HR or a designated complaint office, if one exists.
- The Betriebsrat, where your workplace has one.
- A Gleichstellungsbeauftragte or anti-discrimination contact, especially in some public institutions or larger organizations.
- A Gewerkschaft, if you are a member or can join.
- A trusted senior person who can help you avoid being alone with the harasser while you consider the formal route.
Ask practical questions before disclosing everything: Who will be told? Will my name be shared? Can I ask for interim safety measures? Can I bring someone to meetings? Will notes be taken? What if the person I complain about is my manager?
Employers may have duties, but employer processes are not neutral by magic. HR often serves the organization as well as the employee. Some workplaces act responsibly; others minimize, delay, reframe harassment as conflict, or push the affected person to move teams. Independent advice can matter.
Phase 6: Ask for safety measures without accepting blame
You can ask for practical changes while the situation is assessed: not being scheduled alone with the person, changing reporting lines, moving a desk, avoiding business travel together, having meetings with a third person present, or limiting contact to written channels.
Name these as protection measures, not as your punishment. The structural fact is simple: workplaces often solve harassment by moving the woman, reducing her opportunities, or making her carry the inconvenience. If a change affects your pay, hours, training, client access, reputation, or progression, document that too.
If you are told to “just avoid him” or “be less friendly,” write down who said it and when. Advice that makes you responsible for managing someone else’s harassment is part of the record.
Phase 7: Get external advice before the situation narrows
External advice is not an escalation failure. It helps you understand options before the employer’s version becomes the only version.
Depending on your situation, you might contact a Gewerkschaft, a specialist anti-discrimination advice service, a women’s counselling service, a lawyer, or a public anti-discrimination body. If harassment is connected to domestic violence, stalking, or threats outside work, specialist violence support may be important too. The Hilfetelefon Gewalt gegen Frauen at 116 016 is a stable Germany-wide contact point for women experiencing violence, including when you are not sure what category fits.
If your question becomes mainly legal procedure, deadlines, claims, or court routes, Justice Access Centre is the better lane. Its article on retaliation patterns is especially relevant if your hours are cut, feedback changes, meetings stop, or a dismissal threat appears after you speak up. Retaliation often looks like ordinary management until the timeline is visible.
Phase 8: Protect confidentiality, but do not rely on secrecy alone
You can ask for confidentiality. You can say that you do not consent to unnecessary sharing. You can ask who will see documents. But in many workplaces, a complaint cannot be investigated without some information reaching the person complained about or their manager. Anyone who promises total secrecy may be oversimplifying.
So make a disclosure plan. Decide what you are comfortable sharing first, what you want advice on before sharing, and what would make you unsafe if repeated. If you need translation, disability accommodation, childcare timing, or a support person in meetings, ask for it. These are not special favours; they are conditions that make participation possible.
Keep your own copy of every complaint, response, meeting invitation, protocol, and outcome letter. After a phone call or meeting, send a short follow-up: “My understanding is that I reported X on this date, asked for Y safety measure, and you said Z would happen by Friday.” Written follow-up compensates for the structural ease with which institutions forget what was said in rooms where you were outnumbered.
If you are unsure whether it counts
You do not have to solve the legal label before getting support. Unwanted sexual comments, touching, repeated invitations after refusal, pornographic material, sexualized jokes, threats, gendered insults, pregnancy-related hostility, punishment for rejecting someone, or harassment combined with racism, disability discrimination, trans hostility, or migration-status pressure can all be serious.
Ask a narrower question first: “What happened, what do I need to be safe at work this week, and who can help me decide the next step?” That question is enough. This is not your failure to negotiate. A workplace that relies on your silence to stay comfortable is showing you where the problem sits.
