WARNING: THIS WEBSITE MENTIONS SEXUAL HARASSMENT. IF YOU ARE TRIGGERED BY ANY OF THIS CONTENT AND ARE LOOKING FOR SUPPORT, CLICK HERE

WARNING: THIS WEBSITE MENTIONS SEXUAL HARASSMENT. IF YOU ARE TRIGGERED BY ANY OF THIS CONTENT AND ARE LOOKING FOR SUPPORT, CLICK HERE

Policy, process and reporting resources

Sexual harassment in the workplace causes immediate and long-term harm to individuals and organisations. Individuals can suffer psychological, physical and employment harm. It negatively impacts productivity and is a barrier to career development, especially for women. Organisations face reputational and financial repercussions if they fail to create a respectful and safe workplace culture. Sexual harassment is illegal.

Instances of sexual harassment are often viewed as individual grievances arising from specific situations, when in reality they likely reflect a systemic organisational problem and should be viewed as seriously as other sources of workplace harm.

In this section, you’ll find guides your team can use to update your company’s policies and processes that seek to identify and prevent sexual harassment, and to ensure people feel safe in the workplace.

Each document includes an overview of core obligations, an outline of the areas to focus on, and example wording that will require adaptation to reflect your organisation’s specific risk profile. These are not comprehensive but are designed to provide a strong starting point for your organisation.

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Policy, process and reporting resources

Sexual harassment in the workplace causes immediate and long-term harm to individuals and organisations. Individuals can suffer psychological, physical and employment harm. It negatively impacts productivity and is a barrier to career development, especially for women. Organisations face reputational and financial repercussions if they fail to create a respectful and safe workplace culture. Sexual harassment is illegal and organisations that fail to take steps to address this conduct may be subject to enforcement action and/or civil penalties.

There has been a qualitative shift in Australian law regulating sexual harassment, harassment on the ground of sex, and workplace environments that are hostile on the ground of sex (‘sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct’). These changes are world leading because they change the focus of legal obligations from reactive responses to reported incidents, to the systemic prevention of these behaviours.  

The recent legislative changes to the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, the Fair Work Act 2009, the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 and WHS laws:

  • Set clear boundaries for acceptable workplace conduct.

    Casual sexism and hostile workplace environments that are degrading or intimidating have typically been treated less seriously and, at worst, normalised and accepted as forming part of an organisation’s culture.  Today, we understand that these behaviours can perpetuate sexual harassment so organisations are now required to take action before this precursory conduct escalates to sexual harassment.

     

  • Require organisations, by imposing a positive duty, to proactively prevent sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct. 

    It is no longer sufficient for organisations to merely rely on complaints being made by persons affected, and expect them to do so at a time when they are vulnerable.  The harm has already occurred by that stage and it is clear from the data that these behaviours are significantly under-reported in Australia.
 

"Data and averages don’t tell the whole story. When reporting to the board, share incidents and their impacts, with consent and confidentiality. Creating empathy builds urgency."

CEW member; former CEO; non-executive director

This legal framework compels organisations to reform their culture, transitioning from ‘zero tolerance’ of these behaviours to ‘zero harm’.

The federal positive duty to prevent sexual harassment and related inappropriate came into effect on 13 December 2022. Since 12 December 2023, the Australian Human Rights Commission has had a full suite of compliance powers to enforce the positive duty.

In practice, what your organisation must do to comply with the positive duty will depend on its circumstances.  The size, nature and circumstances of the business, financial and non-financial resources, and the practicality and the cost of measures to eliminate sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct, will all be taken into account in assessing compliance.  

Ultimately you can be confident that your organisation is complying with its obligations if it creates and maintains a respectful and safe culture, and builds psychological safety and trust that it is committed to preventing and appropriately responding to harmful behaviour, so that these behaviours do not happen in the first place.  In this section, you’ll find guides your team can use to update your organisation’s policies and processes, which seek to lay the foundations of this culture of prevention.

Each document includes an overview of core obligations, an outline of the areas to focus on, and example wording that will require adaptation to reflect your organisation’s specific risk profile. These are not comprehensive but are designed to provide a strong starting point for your organisation.

Risk description

Use this example wording to help you describe sexual harassment as a workplace health and safety risk, and to outline obligations to address it.

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Policy

Use this guide to update your policy to set expectations and obligations, encourage reporting, outline the processes for reporting and consequences for perpetrators.

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Charter wording

Use this example wording with your board, and your risk, workplace health and safety and sustainability committees.

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Risk register

Use this resource to identify risks and mitigation measures to include in a risk register.

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Board reporting

Use this guide to the specific questions that will help board members monitor their organisation’s ability to prevent and respond to instances of sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct.

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Reporting dashboards

Download these example reporting dashboards to help you identify and measure current risks, see incidents at a glance, and track progress on mitigating risk.

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All documents are intended to provide general guidance only. The contents should not be relied upon as legal advice. Specific legal advice should be sought in particular matters.

MORE SECTIONS IN THE RESPECT TOOLKIT:

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2. TAKING ACTION
4. RESOURCES

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We need to set the tone and lead from the top. With this in mind, here are examples of some things we should never say or accept from others:

  • A bullying and harassment policy should be enough to deal with sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct.
  • We have low report rates of sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct, so it’s not a problem at this organisation.
  • We have a reporting hotline which is well publicised, but we don’t get many calls about sexual harassment or related inappropriate conduct, so it’s not an issue here.
  • I have been in this industry for decades and I have never seen it, so it mustn’t be happening.
  • That’s the remit of our HR team. If there were ever a big issue, they would escalate it to us.
  • Our staff engagement scores are terrific and there is no indication of there being a sexual harassment problem here. That means we’re doing enough.
 
Most cultural issues aren’t hiding in plain sight. Often, it’s the things that aren’t being talked about that we need to be concerned about. Research tells us that sexual harassment is common and that it’s significantly under reported. In fact, increased reporting can indicate greater psychological safety and a culture of trust that the organisation takes sexual harassment seriously. We have a positive duty to prevent sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct, and to continuously assess and evaluate whether we are meeting the requirements of the duty. 
 

We need to ensure our people feel safe to come forward and report instances of sexual harassment or related inappropriate conduct in the workplace. The only way they’ll do this is if they can see that leadership takes this issue seriously.

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We take the health and wellbeing of our people very seriously. We work hard to improve our safety outcomes and reduce injuries, and overall we do a good job of preventing physical harm to our people.

As we have seen in many other organisations, sexual harassment is more prevalent than a lot of people think. This represents a real risk to keeping people safe in the workplace, and to our people’s wellbeing and productivity.

It can also cause significant damage to our reputation, our brand as an employer of choice, lost business, and to our corporate standing. If we fail to take steps to address this conduct, we may be subject to enforcement action and/or civil penalties. Our organisation may also be held liable for inappropriate conduct committed by our employees unless we took all reasonable steps to prevent the conduct occurring. 

We need to make it crystal clear to everyone in the organisation that we have zero tolerance for any form of sexual harassment. We will always take appropriate action when sexual harassment or related inappropriate conduct occurs. We seek to prevent these unlawful behaviours and to have a zero-harm workplace. We welcome the new Australian positive duty placed on organisations by the Anti-Discrimination and Human Rights Legislation Amendment (Respect at Work) Act 2022 and commit to implementing its provisions in a timely fashion and demonstrating our leadership. 

We need to treat sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct risks as we would any other physical or psychological risk in the workplace. We already have existing systems and processes in place for identifying and mitigating workplace health and safety risks and hazards, and for defining our desired safe and respectful culture. 

We need to embed these sexual harassment response frameworks into our existing risk reporting practices and organisational culture, so all forms of sexual harassment and related misconduct are eradicated.

We can’t afford to wait on this; we need to act urgently. 

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Sexual harassment is any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favours or other conduct of a sexual nature. It’s not only a human rights issue, which is unlawful under the Sex Discrimination Act, but also a workplace health and safety (WHS) risk which can cause significant psychological, physical, reputational and financial harm.

Existing systems and processes for managing WHS risks and hazards should be used to eliminate the risks and control the likelihood of sexual harassment occurring in the workplace.

Board members and senior executives have a duty to address this. Everyone deserves to work in a safe, respectful and inclusive environment. Respect is everyone’s business.

Sexual harassment is any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favours or other conduct of a sexual nature. It’s not only a human rights issue, which is unlawful under the Sex Discrimination Act, but also a workplace health and safety (WHS) risk which can cause significant psychological, physical, reputational and financial harm.

Existing systems and processes for managing WHS risks and hazards should be used to eliminate the risks and control the likelihood of sexual harassment occurring in the workplace.

Board members and senior executives have a duty to address this. Everyone deserves to work in a safe, respectful and inclusive environment. Respect is everyone’s business.