There is no room for racism at work. We are all entitled to be safe, treated fairly and with dignity. Work with us on our workplace anti-racism pilot: Better Than That and become an anti-racist workplace today.
Racism stops people from participating fully in the workplace and causes harm. It negatively impacts the recruitment, retention, and remuneration of racialised staff, and the overall workplace health and safety of all employees. In turn, racism at work makes it harder for people to progress in a career, negatively impacting on their economic security, including accessing housing, education and healthcare.
To address racism at work, Victoria’s first workplace anti-racism scheme is being developed and trialled to help challenge racism, including race discrimination and vilification, at work.
Better Than That: Building anti-racist workplaces pilot will support employers and build their capability to better prevent and respond to racism in the workplace. It will be run by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission in collaboration with 15 pilot workplaces and other partners. Toolkits, e-learnings, workshops and other resources will be developed and trialled with experts in the field and the pilot workplaces.
The scheme builds on what we know from the Victorian Anti-Racism Strategy 2024-2029 – that people want to see progress in people’s everyday lives including at work. Better Than That will implement goal 3 of the Victorian Anti-Racism Strategy together with the Guideline: Race discrimination at work so that racism and discrimination are no longer barriers to participation, progress, safety and success in workplaces.
There is growing evidence that there is value for a company that embeds human rights considerations into its core work practices – and significant costs when human rights are ignored.
Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities also requires government and other public authorities to consider human rights, including the right to equality.
Better Than That will pilot anti-racist systems and practices in your workplace. It will assist:
Many workplaces already want to improve their systems, programs and practices to attract and retain a racially diverse workforce. Under Victoria’s Equal Opportunity Act 2010, all employers also have a positive duty to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate discrimination as far as possible. This means that employers need to take some proactive steps to prevent and address race discrimination, vilification and hate speech in the workplace.
If you would like to be one of the 15 workplaces to be a pilot in our Better Than That anti-racism at work project, please contact us via education@veohrc.vic.gov.au
Workplaces will be compensated for participation in the pilot.
