Taking the Next Steps

The names Grace Tame, Brittany Higgins and Chanel Contos are now familiar to most people, but there are millions of other names we don’t know: The names of the one in two women and the one in four men in Australia who’ve experienced sexual harassment in their lifetime.

Now is the time for us to take the urgent and collective next step to fix these unacceptable statistics. Some organisations are already doing some great work – however, there are plenty of organisations and people in positions of power that need to do better.

Last month marked International Women’s Day (IWD), a day we usually celebrate. But many of us didn’t celebrate in the same way we usually would, as much as we would have loved to. Instead, we gathered some of our most prominent thinkers on gender equality and workplace sexual harassment and had an extremely important and timely discussion.

We heard from a panel of experts, including sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins, on actionable ways workplaces can do better, such as being more transparent about the penalties doled out to perpetrators, including sexual harassment as a consistent agenda item for boards, and treating it with the same seriousness as we do any other workplace health and safety risk (you can read the HRM wrap up here).

It can be difficult to know where to start when addressing something as pervasive and damaging as sexual harassment, but you’ve just got to find your starting point, commit to it and continue to elevate your response from there.

At AHRI, we’ve started by updating our resources on sexual harassment – including templates, policies and guidance documents – and made them publicly available. We’ve also updated our training offering, and we’re partnering with other associations, such as the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia and the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, to ensure the information we’re offering is relevant and practical for a wide range of businesses across Australia.

We also plan to work closely with the Australian Human Rights Commission and Kate Jenkins to provide expert-led guidance for HR, and support and inform aspects of its comprehensive Respect@Work report recommendations. 

But we won’t stop here. We know that to instill long-lasting change, we need to keep these conversations going. Part of this challenge includes addressing the inequality that many women face in the workplace – a point that Kate made during the IWD panel when she said: “The primary driver [of sexual harassment] is power disparity, and gender inequality in most organisations.”

Diverse organisations that foster inclusivity and a sense of belonging are more likely to thrive. This is a topic we’re looking forward to exploring further at AHRI’s Diversity & Inclusion conference on 21 May, which will be held in Sydney as well as online.

This is just part of the important work we’re doing at AHRI to help foster ethical and inclusive workplaces – and it’s a job we take very seriously. I look forward to continuing to work with and learn from the experts in this space so we can support everyone in making work environments safe, productive and engaging for all.