Army Cadet to CEO: How this executive aims to end workplace harassment

On her very first day as a Cadet in the United States Army, Roxanne Petraeus remembers being told by her sergeant that as a woman, she should try her best not to do anything else to stand out — that women don't meet the military standard and that really, they shouldn't even be in the armed forces. 

"Then he went right back to logistics," Petraeus recalls. "And it was bizarre, but I didn't think anything else of it."

But the next day, she was called in to the office and asked to confirm the experience, which had been reported by an onlooking female Officer. Petraeus hesitated but ultimately agreed to corroborate the story — "I'm so grateful to this woman for flagging the concern, but there was always the question: Am I going to get in trouble?" — and it would stand as the first and last time she ever reported workplace harassment. But it would inspire her to make it easier for others to come forward. 

Read more: Tech leaders are ignoring toxic behavior, say 43% of workers

Petraeus went on to spend seven successful and happy years, from 2009-2016, serving in the Army, eventually retiring as a Captain. Today, she is the co-founder and CEO of Ethena, a workplace training company launched in 2019 to improve office culture and make it easier to identify and report workplace harassment. While she attributes so much of her current success to her experience in the military, it also inspired her mission, especially once she realized these workplace issues are not exclusive to the military space. 

"You see statistics about how 50% of women in the workplace have experienced harassment, with some reports saying up to 90%," she says. "Even anecdotally, just talking to friends throughout the years, regardless of what profession they're in, it's an incredibly common experience and it isn't even specific to women — there are all sorts of slights to members of the LGBTQ community and so many issues surrounding race in the workplace." 

According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, between 2018 and 2021, the EEOC received a total of 98,411 charges alleging harassment at work. A 2023 study from software and digital service review platform Gitex found that one in five employees have experienced violence and harassment at work, whether physical, psychological or sexual; over 55% said they reported it to their manager, 36% reported the issue to the HR department and 8% reported it to a third party. Only 54% said the issue was resolved after reporting it. 

Read more: 'HR is not there to protect employees': An attorney breaks down gender discrimination cases

According to Petraeus, the lack of reporting often comes down to clunky, difficult-to-navigate protocols that don't put employees first. Ethena partners with companies to offer comprehensive trainings, and offers employees different resources and guides on how to point out and bring up harassment to leadership they can easily access from their phones, even when they're off the clock. 

During her time in the military, Petraeus remembers short, dated and often parodied training sessions on harassment and bullying that weren't taken seriously by leadership — and, therefore got the same treatment from fellow soldiers. It made it difficult to trust the people she was supposed to bring these concerns to, and made her question if weary that her experience would be taken seriously by her colleagues. As a result, Ethena also recently launched an anonymous reporting tool to their suite of offerings to make reporting and receiving harassment claims easier.   

"Without that knowledge, there's literally nothing an employer can do," she says, stressing that most leaders want to know, in her experience, what's happening within their workforce. "In terms of the military, there are studies that show that units where the local commander was perceived to have cared about creating an inclusive culture saw less harassment than the units in which the commander was perceived to not care. Now just swap out 'commander' for 'CEO.'"

Read more: Are you listening to employees' needs? 4 ways to help them feel seen and heard

These issues will only demand more attention from employers as the workforce continues to evolve. As Gen Z takes hold of the workplace, the most diverse generation in history is less likely to report workplace bullying than older generations, according to a recent report by the Ethisphere Institute. Gen Z is also 32% more likely than their millennial peers to leave a job if they don't feel valued — which puts the onus on employers to create a safer, more communicative culture for all workers in the interest of retaining talent. 

"Employees are very impacted by their environment," Petraeus says. "So if you roll out effective training, if you put out comprehensive tools, and commit to doing annual ethics surveys that really shows employees that doing the right thing really does matter and you will absolutely see different outcomes."