Workplace safety

What should an organisation do if it has a problem with sexual harassment?

Putting together goals and an appropriate framework to eliminate the gender imbalance in a workplace is a great start, but what organisations need to remember is that the problem will not disappear overnight.

Whilst at Safetrac we provide clients with high-quality engaging online training for management and staff, a training course is just one step in the process of preventing sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment exists where the culture allows it to. The Respect@Work report emphasises the importance of workplace culture in tackling sexual harassment: “building of cultures of trust and respect, that minimise the risk of sexual harassment occurring and, if it does occur, ensure it is dealt with in a way that minimises harm to workers”.

Transforming culture requires ongoing and persistent efforts from all levels of the business. It requires a workplace to recognise and address power imbalances, benchmark status quo, build policies, implement robust, repeated and reportable training, ensure there are multiple avenues for reporting, and that there are appropriate repercussions for perpetrators and support for victims established and clearly communicated.

It is essential that all organisations communicate their values and behavioural expectations. Training activities should include not only management and staff but also volunteers and contractors. Even suppliers and customers should be aware of acceptable codes of behaviour. Training must be ongoing and repeated and not a one-off activity.

And while having appropriate policies and training is a great start, you must have leaders and a culture that are going to lead by example.

Leadership plays a critical role in creating safe and respectful workplaces. Leaders set the framework for preventing and responding to sexual harassment, and they should also model a diverse, inclusive, trusted, and gender-equal culture. Ideally, targets around gender equality, diversity and inclusion should form a part of a leader’s key performance indicators (KPIs).

Organisations whose leadership teams demonstrate diversity and inclusion help illuminate power imbalances that so often enable sexual harassment to thrive.

Leaders should have a strong understanding of the key drivers of workplace sexual harassment and prioritise gender equality. They need to be trained to understand how to respond appropriately to situations, ideally be trained in trauma-informed reporting, and empower all staff to work together in stamping out sexual harassment from the workplace.

How can businesses prepare for Respect@Work coming into effect?

As a starting point, businesses need to benchmark themselves as to what issues staff may currently be experiencing.

Providing staff with an anonymised survey is a great way to start because it gives them the opportunity to indicate behaviours and culture that they have experienced or witnessed that could indicate or enable sexual harassment in the workplace.

From that you can identify what the issues are and what priorities need to be addressed and any amendments and adjustments to policies and procedures and be made. Policies then need to be distributed to all staff and, ideally, every staff member should sign off on that policy to say that they’ve read, understood and agree to comply with that policy.

Safetrac can work with a business to identify and suggest appropriate training courses to address any issues that have been identified in that survey.

Compliance training shouldn’t just be about checking a box to show a regulator that staff have been trained. It is essential that the training delivered is engaging to the learner audience for whom it is intended.

The better the training, the better the learner outcome. Training is an opportunity to teach staff and ensure they understand what they can and can’t do in the workplace. If a learner undertakes a course on sexual harassment that is interesting and relevant, the learner is much more likely to understand the topic and what is and is not acceptable behaviour.

It is also essential that the training provided is updated alongside changes in the law; every couple of months, we’re seeing changes come through the law in this area and courses are currently requiring frequent updates.

It is also important to remember that training is not a one-off occurrence. It needs to be an ongoing and repetitive cycle whereby we can show repeated and ongoing efforts to ensure staff understand what they can and cannot do.

It is crucial for mining companies to stamp out sexual harassment from occurring and to prioritise the prevention of it in the workplace. They must work meaningfully and deliberately to create a culture of respect and provide a safe and inclusive work environment for all employees. By ensuring leaders oversee cultural shifts that incorporate diversity and inclusion and take proactive measures to address incidents promptly, the mining industry can work towards eliminating sexual harassment and promoting a more equitable workplace.