It’s no longer enough to tell our kids to brush their teeth and to wear clean clothes to work. It’s not enough to tell them to work hard, to put their best foot forward.

Now we must also tell them that they need to be wary of their colleagues and to be wary of their bosses. Sexual harassment is now endemic at work and we must arm our young people. I could not imagine having to say that to my own children in their first jobs – but they are older now. They tell me that their employers were brisk and perhaps just a touch brusque.

Now, one in five young people aged between 15 and 17 report having been sexually harassed at work at least once in the last five years. This new research from the Australian Human Rights Commission and launched on Wednesday by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins at the National Press Club is based on a survey of 10,000 participants who are representative of the Australian workplace. Some of the stories Jenkins told are harrowing, particularly because of the role of human resources departments who enable harassers instead of defending staff. Yes, Jenkins revealed the story of one young woman who complained about sexual harassment and HR asked her what she had been wearing.

War paint. We need to wear war paint.

Our workplaces are a mess. One in three workers report being sexually harassed in the last five years, women and men. What’s worse is that one in five workers complained about harassment and half of those say nothing changed after their complaint. And the witnesses to that sexual harassment? Two in three did nothing. They stood by and stood on their hands. They allowed the mistreatment of the vulnerable to proceed without intervening, protecting or defending. They did not report. And some said they did not report it because they thought it would make it worse for the victim. Yup. As if keeping quiet about abuse ever helped anyone.

Most of us do not even report when it happens to us.

I can – kind of – understand why some people don’t bother to report lurid jokes. Just recently, a fool of a man introduced me to a group of people and described our meeting as a one-night stand. Everyone was embarrassed except the fool. He thought he was absolutely hilarious. And even though I’m a grown woman and it made me furious, I didn’t complain. I spent a few days wondering if I’d overreacted. That’s the problem with jokes. They usually fall into two categories – the not-funny or the deeply-inappropriate so you wonder whether you are being too sensitive. And ah, should you report, maybe you are too sensitive, maybe you feminists have no sense of humour. And if I feel like that, I can’t imagine how a vulnerable kid would feel. Turns out that feeling that you might be overreacting was the exact reason not to report for about half of the victims – others thought it might just be easier to keep quiet.

But here's another – creepy - thing. Of the respondents, over half of the women said they had experienced inappropriate physical contact; and just under one quarter of the men. Yep, someone thinks it’s ok to touch a colleague. Maybe if you are godparent to their kid or you are giving them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The rest of the time, keep your hands to yourself, you weirdo. It makes the majority of workers – especially those who can’t speak up – feel shocking. Afraid. Insecure. And maybe that's the whole point.

We are already frightened. Just under one in six of us report sexual harassment when it’s happened to us – and of those, one in five ends up labelled a troublemaker, victimised or ignored by colleagues. And in the end, some will resign, be forced out of their jobs because of someone else’s behavior.

That’s not good enough.

So what advice do we give to young people in the workforce. A few things. Stay away from working in the media, in telecommunications or in information industries, where the prevalence of workplace sexual harassment runs at 80 per cent across men and women. It looks as if those workplaces, where work boundaries have blurred because of digital disruption, have let those same disruptive processes distort decent workplace behavior. No other industry comes close although mining, for women, is catastrophic.

I hear that one young man in television has 12 allegations from women against him in his workplace yet no action has been taken. What do you reckon? 12 young women would gang up together to make stuff up? How long does it take to sort this out? And who will be the boss who takes responsibility for the fallout?

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins is conducting an inquiry into workplace sexual harassment and I urge you to participate. We must name and shame and detail what has happened to us. It’s a great goal to work on changing the system but that’s a long way off and we will need structural change before that’s achieved so in the meantime, keep notes. Keep receipts. Senator Lucy Gichuhi confesses she was the victim of workplace bullying but I fear  she has succumbed to pressure from Crabbe and Goyle* not to reveal the names of those who bullied her.

But we’ve got to act. Join your union or professional association. Go with friends to complain. Never go in to a meeting with human resources on your own. HR people are not there to help you, they are there to protect the company. Hire lawyers or take friends who are lawyers. Record everything. Report everything. Keep receipts.

Report everything. Nothing else will make change.

*Crabbe and Goyle are fictional thugs from the Harry Potter books. Somehow they've appeared in our parliament.

Jenna Price is a Canberra Times columnist and an academic at the University of Technology Sydney.