6 steps for employers to eliminate sexual harassment

The positive duty encourages employers to put a healthy workplace culture in place, just as occupational health and safety laws require them to take appropriate steps to ensure injuries don’t occur. Employers must also put measures in place to ensure they respond to complaints swiftly and appropriately when they do arise.

While harassers are responsible for their own behaviour, in some cases, employers can also be held responsible – unless they can show that they have taken appropriate steps to prevent sexual harassment and victimisation.

Here are six steps to help employers meet their positive duty to eliminate sexual harassment and build a thriving, respectful and productive workplace.

1 Know your obligations

Employers need to understand their obligations under the Equal Opportunity Act and other relevant workplace laws, and have up-to-date knowledge about workplace sexual harassment. Leadership teams should ensure they have the knowledge and skills to champion and ensure a safe culture and eliminate sexual harassment.

2 Build a culture of safety and monitor risk

Employers should scan the workplace culture, environment, processes and systems for risk. They should listen to and  work with staff to identity what a safe and respectful workplace culture looks like, commit to building it, and create specific measures to monitor progress.

3 Set the standard of behaviour

Workplace training should be comprehensive, tailored and not a ‘one off’. It should ensure workers understand that sexual harassment is against the law and will not be tolerated. Leaders and managers should model respectful and professional behaviour.

4 Develop and implement a prevention strategy

Employers should prevent sexual harassment by developing and implementing an effective sexual harassment strategy (such as a policy, set of procedures and/or an action plan.) Make sure the strategy reflects the workplace and is accessible and promoted to all workers. Workers must be empowered to know how and where to report, have multiple avenues available for reporting and be encouraged to use them.

5 Hold harassers to account

Sexual harassment should be addressed consistently with a fair, timely and accessible reporting and complaint procedure that focuses on the needs of the victim. Responses should take a victim-centric approach to prioritise the victim/survivor’s wellbeing. Employers must recognise the risk harassers may continue to pose in other workplaces if they chose to resign during or after an investigation, and hold harassers to account. Non-disclosure agreements should not be used to silence victims.

6 Review outcomes and strategies for managing sexual harassment

Outcomes and strategies must be regularly reviewed, evaluated and updated to drive continuous improvement, recognising that formal complaints may not reveal the full extent of sexual harassment in the organisation. Employers should communicate the results of reviews and suggested improvements and actions to workers.

Please contact our enquiry service via live chat or email enquiries@veohrc.vic.gov.au.

If you have a question about your obligations under the Equal Opportunity Act, contact our enquiry service. Our experienced staff can help you understand what you need to do to prevent sexual harassment and respond appropriately.

New practice guideline Workplace sexual harassment: Complying with the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 – coming soon

This guideline provides practical advice on how to prevent sexual harassment, how to address it in your workplace and how to handle complaints appropriately and effectively.

The new edition of our sexual harassment guideline will be released in early 2020. To receive updates on the new edition, subscribe to our mailing list.

Find out about education and consultancy

We have significant experience supporting organisations to take action to eliminate sexual harassment in their workplaces. From our innovative work developing simple and effective digital tools for workplaces through our Raise It! program to our collaborative work with individual employers, we bring knowledge, expertise and a practical approach to supporting safe and healthy workplace cultures.

We recognise that meaningful change requires more than policy statements and staff training. We tailor our work to meet the specific needs of each organisation.

For more information please email education@veohrc.vic.gov.au.

Here’s a snapshot of our methodology: