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Sexual harassment is defined by the Fair Work Act as any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favours, or any other unwelcome behaviour of a sexual nature from one person to another.
Some examples of what workplace sexual harassment might look like can be found online at Fair Work Australia.
In 2018 Safe Work Australia found that one in three people have experienced workplace sexual harassment over the past five years. Sadly, this number is increasing across a number of different industries, most recently the mining sector, where a report titled ‘Enough is enough’ – Sexual Harassment against women in the FIFO mining industry made headlines.
However, mining isn’t the only industry in Australia with a high prevalence of sexual harassment. The Australian Human Rights Commission 2018 National Survey found that there was a higher occurrence of sexual harassment in the following industries.
Workplace sexual harassment isn’t just an HR matter, in fact it is a Work Health and Safety (WHS) issue. Employers have a responsibility and a duty of care to their employees – providing and preserving a safe workplace that is free of sexual harassment. There are WHS laws in place that require employers to take action in reducing or eliminating the risk of sexual harassment in the workplace. Some of the preventative actions have been listed below.
See the full guide for preventing workplace sexual harassment.
This allows employees to feel safe and valued within the workplace,
This will help prevent repeat occurrence of this behaviour and reduce the chance of sexual harassment.
Implement systems to allow for informal, formal, anonymous and confidential reporting. Make sure that your employees are aware that there is support and systems in place for occurrences of inappropriate behaviour.
Ensure that managers and employees understand appropriate workplace behaviours and policies.
Set clear expectations of employee behaviour in the workplace.
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