Last week (15th of August 2024) Safe Work Australia shared a list of 15 considerations for controlling sexual harassment. There’s some simple and immediate actions you could take from this to control the risk of sexual harassment. This article will take a closer look at two considerations and what you could do with this information.
Given the spotlight on ‘Respect@Work’ legislation, most notably the update to include ‘Positive Duty’, I wanted to share two considerations with you for controlling the risk of sexual harassment.
- When tasks are to be done – e.g. emptying bins the following morning to avoid darkness and potential interactions with intoxicated people.
- Where the task is done – e.g. meeting clients in the office rather than in homes or isolated environments.
Here is a link to Safe Work Australia’s Model Code of Practice (look at section 5 – Controlling the Risk on page 22 onwards).
What can you do with this?
Identify any current tasks where workers might be isolated or carrying tasks out at night time or in poorly lit areas. Is it possible to adjust where and when these tasks take place to minimise potential risks (not just of sexual harassment but also of other hazards)? Once complete, document any adjustments you have made in your safety management system. Regulators are looking for evidence that you are proactively managing risks. It is equally as important to not just manage these risks but also be able to show you are managing these risks proactively.
Effective documentation is essential
You can do everything right to manage risks, but if you don’t have the documentation then it is hard to prove you were proactively managing risks. The questions to consider are, someone inspects your workplace, what do you show them? Who is responsible for collating and presenting this evidence?
A commonly accepted way of doing this in the eyes of regulators is by maintaining a ‘psychosocial risk assessment‘ done in consultation with workers. This can become your central record keeping point for all psychosocial risk matters. Consider this like bookkeeping for tax purposes. If you are audited, you don’t want scattered and missing information. You want to be able to confidently respond with “this is everything you need and I am happy to walk you through this”.
Setting up your risk assessment
Doing this doesn’t need to be costly or complex. Watch this 30 second video below for an overview to kickstart your thinking on how to manage this:
For many organisations in 2024 ‘Psychosocial Safety’ is just starting to hit the leadership agenda. This is great to see. Policies are being designed, training is being carried out and this risk is being discussed in the board room as a very legitimate risk to consider. More and more, we are seeing risk assessments being carried out. Perhaps the biggest challenge with a risk assessment is knowing what to do and how to do it, and, to add to that, how to do it in a cost-efficient and sustainable way. It’s not uncommon to see processes started with enthusiasm only to die off due to the unsustainable nature of them.
Because many organisations sit in this world of uncertainty, there are some businesses suggesting you must go to extreme lengths to comply with legislative requirements. This is not the case, particularly if you are in that small to medium sized business range. It is often these highly complicated and resource exhaustive processes that are also the least effective in actually mitigating risks. And, they are almost always unsustainable. The law requires ongoing management of risks so sustainable processes matter.
One of the most time consuming and complex areas is consulting staff at each level of psychosocial safety management. Long surveys, focus groups, interviews and more. It’s tough to get it right. If you would like a practical and efficient approach to worker consultation, I can share a short video walkthrough of a consultation process you can follow. Reach out at info@skodel.com.
