Duty holders reminded of technology-facilitated WHS risks

Source: OHS Alert (30.01.2025)

Findings on a major workplace safety issue affecting talent recruitment and retention have prompted warnings on technology-facilitated harassment and legislative amendments.

An Our Watch-commissioned, Federal Government-funded survey of 500 workplace leaders and 1,000 employees from medium and large organisations found 83 per cent of females and 67 per cent of males would consider leaving a job where the workplace didn't treat work-related sexual harassment as a serious issue.

It also found 75 per cent of women and 44 per cent of men agreed that if they were looking for a new job, a potential workplace's approach to gender equality would be an important consideration.

In releasing the results today, Our Watch – which strives to prevent violence against women – reminded employers of their legislative obligation to proactively prevent workplace sexual harassment, under changes made to the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act 1984 in late 2022 (see related article).

Alarmingly, however, recent Our Watch research showed that 40 per cent of workplace leaders with managerial responsibilities or higher were not aware of the new proactive duty, and only 76 per cent of leaders were aware of the fact that workplace sexual harassment was illegal.

"Under the Sex Discrimination Act, employers have a positive duty to take active steps to prevent and eliminate sexual harassment and workplace discrimination on the grounds of sex," Our Watch acting CEO Cara Gleeson said today.

"It is not sufficient just to respond to it," she said.

But the benefits of complying with the duty extend far beyond avoiding regulatory action, she stressed.

"The good news is, creating safer, more equal workplaces is actually good for businesses' bottom lines, good for their reputation and of course good for staff," Gleeson said.

She added that addressing gender inequality in workplaces also has multiple benefits – creating positive workplace cultures that attract and retain staff, and tackling "the crisis of violence against women".

"Evidence shows there's a close association between gender inequality and gender-based violence, including sexual harassment, and with most adults spending a lot of time in the workplace, workplaces can really influence people's views about the issue," she said.

Our Watch highlighted a 2024 research report from Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS), which showed workplace technology-facilitated sexual harassment (WTFSH) had become a prevalent form of abuse driven by the shift "out of the office" (see related article).

ANROWS found workers who strongly supported "sexual harassment myths", like "most women secretly enjoy it when men 'come on' to them at work", were 15 times more likely to engage in WTFSH than those with "low endorsement" of such views.

The Office of the eSafety Commissioner subsequently warned that the scope of WTFSH was rapidly evolving and expanding, with advancing computer editing tools facilitating the fabrication of fake sexual images, or sexualised deepfakes, and the increasing accessibility of artificial intelligence technologies making the creation of deepfakes "easier and easier" (see related article).

According to Our Watch, the ANROWS findings demonstrated a clear link between attitudes towards women and sexual harassment, with poor attitudes being the "strongest predictor" of harassment.

"Employers have a requirement to make their workplaces safe and equal and in doing so they will also attract and retain good staff, especially women," Gleeson said.

"Unfortunately, our latest survey follows [media] reports that many more women than men are leaving their jobs because of abuse they face from customers, so there's never been a more critical time to consider improving workplace equality to help address violence against women," she said.

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