Gendered harassment - WHS regulation tackles the harmful impacts of the boys club.

Gendered harassment has no place in a modern workplace. It's not about building resilience or being "tough enough" to handle a hostile environment. These environments damage employee self-esteem, confidence and well-being to the point resilience is depleted, and their productivity plummets.

There's no one-size-fits-all solution, but a risk assessment approach can help. Here's how to understand your vulnerabilities:

Connect with your at-risk individuals/groups!

Although gendered harassment can happen to anyone, we know the following groups are more vulnerable, and more likely to experience it:

• Workers who are new to the workforce

• Workers under 30 years of age

• LGBTIQA+ workers

• Workers who do not conform to traditional gender stereotypes.

• Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander workers

• Workers who have a disability

• Workers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

• Migrant workers or workers holding temporary visas

• Workers who have insecure working arrangements (e.g. casual or labour hire)

Understand who in your team or business is vulnerable and make a point of seeking their opinions and perspectives.

Educate yourself, and your leaders on unconscious bias.

We all have biases, both conscious and unconscious. Unconscious bias, however, can be particularly insidious because we're not even aware of how it shapes our thoughts and actions. This can be especially true for gender bias, which is deeply interwoven into the fabric of society.

Unconscious bias fuels stereotypes about gender roles. Women in “traditionally” male-dominated fields like engineering or construction might face constant questioning about their competence, disguised as "friendly banter". These microaggressions, though seemingly minor, take a toll over time.

When you connect with your at-risk groups, find out whether they feel comfortable speaking up about inappropriate behaviour. If they do not, chances are unconscious bias is in the driver’s seat of your culture and you will be blind to your WHS risk as people won’t speak up for fear of being labelled "difficult" or "emotional."

Understand the power dynamics in your team.

Be aware of the power dynamics in your team.

Situations where men significantly outnumber women, or where leadership positions are a boys' club, create a power imbalance. It is difficult for a female to call out gendered harassment if she is outnumbered, and if she does, start listening, because she is exposing herself greatly by doing so. Employees with low organisational power/influence (as women in male-dominated fields may be) may fear losing their job, losing opportunities, or being alienated in the workplace (by both genders) if they call out harassment in the workplace.

When powerful individuals get away with sexist remarks, or other harmful behaviour, it sends the message that psychological safety isn’t important in this business. Who holds power in your business, and how do they use it? Does anyone get away with poor behaviour because they deliver results? The law doesn’t give them pass because they are competent elsewhere if their behaviours are harmful.

Actions for Business

1. Check out the “Sexual and gender-based harassment Code of Practice”. Get familiar with this. This blog is only a snippet of the insights you will find within this document, which will aid you in managing the risks of gendered harassment in your workplace.

2. Complete an assessment of your risks and build an action plan to control them. Review your business and consider the value of completion by an independent person. If you know you have issues in this space, partnering with an independent consultant can give you an unbiased perspective of the drivers.

3. You can’t effectively manage behaviour in your workplace if you haven’t documented established behavioural expectations with your team, and the consequences if those standards are not met. As part of your actions, make sure you document respectful behaviour expectations, and train your team accordingly.

4. As business owners we never want to wield the big stick, but egregious, or repeated harmful behaviour is something we cannot ignore. If we do, we are failing in our duty of care to our workers. Ensure your action plan includes documenting your discipline procedures (if they are not already in writing). If there are individuals in your business who repeatedly behave in harmful ways, use this process to reset their behaviour them. If they continue to cause harm, or if the harm is significant from the behaviour, manage them out of your business.

5. Seek help from an experienced WHS or HR professional if you are unsure where to start, or how to manage gender-based harassment in your environment.