Building respectful workplaces: what employers need to know

Workplaces in Australia are currently at a significant turning point after the introduction of Respect at Work legislation and Codes of Practice that place responsibility on employers to manage psychosocial hazards in their workplace. Respect at Work relates specifically to changes that have been made to the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (SDA) and the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986, that came into effect at the end of 2022.

Employers are now under greater scrutiny regarding their newly defined responsibility to proactively prevent sexual harassment and eliminate hostile workplace environments. While the legislation sets out the required standards, the real question remains – do organisations realise ensuring a safe, inclusive and respectful culture improves performance in a competitive and disruptive economic environment?

What is Respect@Work?

Respect@Work is a national initiative aimed at preventing and responding to workplace sexual harassment in Australia. It was established following the landmark 2020 Respect@Work Report by the Australian Human Rights Commission, which identified widespread sexual harassment and demanded a change from reactive to proactive organisational approaches. The #MeToo movement that gained momentum in 2017 has become a global phenomenon and is one of the many factors that contributed to the amendment in legislation. 

In recent years, the importance of recognising and preventing sexual harassment in the workplace has been made far more prevalent but there is still a long way to go in Australia. The Australian Human Right Commission’s fifth national survey (2022) found that 33% of people reported they’ve experienced sexual harassment in the workplace in the last 5 years – 41% of women and 26% of men¹. This is a high proportion and warrants concern, especially from employers. Sexual harassment can be defined as unwelcome conduct of any sexual nature, which makes a person feel offended, humiliated and/or intimidated, where a reasonable person would anticipate that reaction in the circumstances. 

Australia is seen as a global leader in the space. With businesses adopting these standards, we have an evidence-based guideline for creating a climate of inclusivity and psychological safety for everybody. There are seven standards given by the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Respect@Work guidelines to ensure a respectful workplace environment:

1. Leadership - Senior leaders are responsible for understanding and fulfilling their obligations under the positive duty. They must implement a clear prevention and response plan and actively consult with workers to ensure its effectiveness.
2. Culture - Organisations must foster a workplace culture that is inclusive, respectful, and values diversity and gender equality. A positive culture encourages people to speak up and helps prevent unlawful conduct from occurring. The process of establishing a consultative charter, defining appropriate workplace behaviour, is a practical way of setting behavioural expectations. 
3. Knowledge - Employers must review and update policies on respectful behaviour and unlawful conduct in line with legal standards and codes of practice. Then the integration through education and training should equip employees to understand, identify, and respond to unacceptable behaviour through procedures such as safe reporting
4. Risk management - A risk-based approach is required - sexual harassment and related conduct must be treated as both an equality risk and a health and safety risk. Employers can implement a broad Psychosocial Risk Assessment to assess and monitor this risk. They will also gain insight into other hazards that interact and intersect with the sexual harassment to increase the risk of harm. 
5. Support - Appropriate and accessible support must be available to workers who experience or witness unlawful conduct. A trauma-informed care approach ensures that support is tailored and delivered through early intervention to mitigate the risk of a workers compensation claim and investigation.
6. Reporting & response - Clear and trusted reporting pathways must be in place, with fair and consistent responses to all concerns raised. Employees must be informed of these options and assured that concerns will follow an unbiased investigation process. If this is not modelled consistently, employees trust in the reporting and response system has failed. 
7. Monitoring, evaluation & transparency - Organisations must collect and analyse data on workplace conduct to understand patterns and guide improvements. Continuous review of policies and practices ensures accountability and fosters transparency across the workplace. Board and executive leadership endorsement reinforces value and translates to behaviour change from the top down. Without sponsorship, internal or external implementation partners are powerless to incite change. 

Overall, the two major guidelines are firstly, the introduction of a positive duty for businesses to prevent sexual harassment, sex discrimination, hostile work environments, sex-based harassment and victimisation².  It sets out a clear responsibility for organisations to take proactive measures to eliminate these forms of unlawful conduct to the utmost degree. The second key amendment came into effect in December 2023, and this allows the Commission to enforce compliance with positive duty³.

Detrimental effects of sexual harassment on employees

Sexual harassment implicitly has several incredibly harmful impacts on the wellbeing of an employee. Workers who experience this may suffer from stress, anxiety, depression and in some cases, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This significantly affects one’s mental health. Victims of this often experience a loss in confidence and feel very isolated, leading to a dissociation from their workplace and tasks. In cases of sexual assault, physical injuries can occur resulting in grave healthy and safety violations. Above all it can derail a person’s career by the need to leave their job altogether. 

Harmful effects of sexual harassment on organisations

Sexual harassment in the workplace leads to increased absenteeism, lower productivity, and higher turnover rates, costing businesses time and resources. It seriously affects the overall capacity of a business to operate successfully. Financially, workplace sexual harassment costs the Australian economy an estimated $3.5 billion each year, including lost productivity and staff replacement costs⁴. 

When sexual harassment occurs in a workplace, that organisation’s reputation risks being severely damaged, making it more difficult to retain long-standing relationships with clients or attract new talent. 

Is your organisation faced with increased risk?

Factors that make sexual harassment more likely:

• It is more likely to occur in highly hierarchical organisations where power imbalances are pervasive. Does your senior leaderships team have gender diversity?
• Workplaces with frequent interactions with clients, customers, or third parties face a higher risk of misconduct. Are there effective controls available to manage psychosocial risks faced by your team?
• Industries or workplaces predominantly composed of men and lacking in diversity may be particularly vulnerable to unsafe or exclusionary behaviours. Do you work in an environment with strong masculine male norms?
• When reports of misconduct don’t appear to be taken seriously, harmful behaviours are more likely to persist. Does your workforce have poor levels of organisational justice?
• Isolated or remote work environments can increase vulnerability due to the lack of regulation and support available. Have you controlled this risk amongst regional or branch offices in your business that might have limited exposure to other leaders?

How can you eliminate the risk?

• It’s vital to involve consultation so that any actions taken are informed by those affected or potentially affected by unlawful conduct at work. This process is now an expectation of every business in Australia and New Zealand. 
• Advancing gender equality in the workplace, by ensuring equal rights, rewards, opportunities and resources, addresses the root cause. Measuring and reporting equality through ESG is a great way to ensure accountability at the highest levels in your organisation. 
• Acknowledge intersectionality and be aware that the risks and impacts of sexual misconduct are influenced and compounded by systemic issues and factors that include poor organisational justice, poor support, remote and isolated work.
• Be trauma-informed. It’s vital to ensure that workplace systems, policies and practices support everyone’s safety and dignity, while actively preventing further harm. How we respond matters, it sets the psychological safety tone amongst employees. 

Impacts of not taking action on employers

Positive duty commands that employers must now take proportionate and reasonable measures to eliminate, as far as possible, sexual harassment, sex-based discrimination and victimisation in the workplace. The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been granted new powers to regulate and oversee compliance with this. There are no explicitly detailed fines for breaches of the Respect@Work Act. However, legislative frameworks impose substantial penalties for related offences.

For instance, under the Work Health and Safety (WHS) laws for managing psychosocial risks including sexual harassment, organisations can receive penalties of up to $18 million for the most serious infringements. Overall, this represents a shift of expectation for organisations to have a proactive rather than reactive approach to preventing sexual harassment.

How can Howden support you?

Howden Psychologists and Psychosocial Safety Specialists help derisk and prevent sexual harassment from occurring in your workplace. We can meet you where you’re at and review your current systems, strengthening what’s in place, and helping you evolve your approach with confidence. By consulting us, we can help you uncover what’s really happening in your work design and workplace culture. Howden establishes a partnership with our clients, empowering them to create and self-manage controls and interventions for early intervention to have the greatest impact on protecting people. 
 

¹ Australian Human Rights Commission, Time for Respect: Fifth national survey on sexual harassment in Australian workplaces (2022) https://humanrights.gov.au/time-for-respect-2022 [accessed 24 April 2025]
² Australian Human Rights Commission. (2023). Guidelines for complying with the positive duty under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth). https://humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-08/Guidelines%20for%20Complying%20with%20the%20Positive%20Duty%20%282023%29.pdf [accessed 25 April 2025]
³ Australian Human Rights Commission. (2023). Guidelines for complying with the positive duty under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth). https://humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-08/Guidelines%20for%20Complying%20with%20the%20Positive%20Duty%20%282023%29.pdf [accessed 25 April 2025]
⁴ Australian Government, Respect@Work: Financial Cost of Workplace Sexual Harassment, August 2022, https://www.respectatwork.gov.au/sites/default/files/202208/Final_R%40W_Financial%20cost%20of%20WSH.pdf. [accessed 25 April 2025]