I really, really dislike this method. If there's a problem employee, deal with that employee. Don't send blanket emails to everyone. It (in my experience) does not work since the person that's actually doing something offensive usually doesn't realize it, and it just confuses all other people working into wondering if they somehow are to blame.
This tactic seems to be really common where I work, and all it seems to lead to is confusion and anger with management because they're unclear. It's as if everyone is being lectured for something one person did.
If I've said something inappropriate, please let me know. If not, leave me out of it so I don't have to worry that I might have. This stuff creates a lot of unneeded stress. It's one of the reasons I'm looking for a new job. Seriously.
> If there's a problem employee, deal with that employee. Don't send blanket emails to everyone.
However: it doesn't have to be that way at all.
Depending on the severity of what's going on, it's possible to nudge a team towards better behavior without blaming anybody. Secondly, negative feedback has to be a part of an overall message in which team members are also given positive feedback on what they are doing right.
It sounds like at your job, you guys just get a bunch of blame thrown at the whole team and I'm guessing it's not balanced out by positive feedback on the stuff you do right.
I once had a coworker that said a lot of gross things: racist stuff, creepy sexual stuff, etc. Went on for a while. I told my manager, without naming the other coworker.
My manager sent a memo to the department reminding them about the fact that there were often guests in our area and that we needed to be careful about jokes and language.
It worked. The coworker didn't feel personally blamed or as if somebody ratted him out, and he did cease with the gross stuff. Everybody won, basically. Or at least nobody lost.
Now obviously that kind of oblique approach won't always work and people may need to be dealt with. The next step would have been for my manager or I to speak to him privately.
You could try something like that. Maybe get an outside speaker to talk to the team, just to give some reminders about specific things to avoid such as staring at womens' chests?