Respect@Work training: 10 key things you need to do to achieve compliance

You can no longer get away with putting your people through old-school, tick-a-box, online training 

In the wake of the #MeToo movement and the National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces, the Australian Human Rights Commission (the Commission) under former Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, worked hard to come up a holistic strategy that would help eliminate sex discrimination and sexual harassment from Australian workplaces.

After all, Australia has been grappling with both issues since the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act in 1984. Forty years later, not much has changed. Quite rightly, Jenkins and her team wanted to move the dial.

The Commission’s new approach, which was implemented by changing the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) so it now places a Positive Duty on employers to eliminate workplace sex discrimination and sexual harassment. It s also widely regarded as world-leading because it attacks the problem from a range of angles and at a number of levels.

What does this mean for training in your business?

The old school, tick-a-box online education modules that caused everyone to fall asleep at their desks are no longer adequate. 

How does your training need to change?

The changes mean that your training efforts need to be more sophisticated.

Your training must have both more depth and nuance.

Respect@Work training is ambitious because you need to:

• explain what causes gender inequality and sexual harassment in the workplace
• focus on prevention
• train people how to respond to incidents
• build a workplace culture where people feel safe, respected and included.

The challenges are:

1. creating training modules that engage your people.
2. persuading your people to change their behaviour.
3. driving cultural change in your organisation.

Everyone who leads a HR team knows that these are hard things to do.

How are Australian businesses with over 100 employees managing the new requirements?

The good news: most businesses are running training on the prevention of sex discrimination and sexual harassment

According to the Workplace Gender Equality Data (WGEA) 2023-2024 industry data, 88% of private sector employers with 100 or more employees in Australia are providing training on the prevention of sexual harassment and sex discrimination.

In 99% of cases, this includes training on ‘respectful workplace conduct and behaviours expected of workers and leaders’, which is encouraging.

In 98% of cases, it covers the different forms of inappropriate workplace behaviour, including, sexual harassment, sex-based harassment and discrimination, as well as the impact of these behaviours. Again, this is impressive.

So, it seems like most businesses are on the right track.

The bad news: most training efforts aren’t meeting the requirements

When we look at the more detailed data the WGEA has compiled on training, the picture isn’t quite so encouraging.

A large percentage of private sector employers aren’t meeting the training requirements set out in the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Guidelines (the Guidelines).

The 2023-2024 WGEA data has picked up that, when it comes to the private sector sexual harassment educational programs, only:

• 70% of training includes the drivers and contributing factors of sexual harassment
• 62% of employers run bystander training
• 45% of employers overlay their training with intersectionality, which means explaining the diverse experiences of different people, including women, LGBTIQ+ workers, CALD workers and workers with a disability.
• 31% of employers are training people managing and responding to disclosures to do so in a trauma-informed way.

What are the 10 key things you need to include to satisfy the Commission’s new education and training requirements?

No. 1: You need to provide both education and training

The Commission expects you to run both education and training for your people.

What does ‘education’ mean? 

In this context, ‘education’ means raising and managing awareness across your workforce.

A good example is, instead of policies, processes and procedures being created, distributed and then tossed in a dusty filing cabinet, you use these documents as the basis for discussion in team meetings or town halls.

You also not only need to use these documents as educational tools but to consult and get feedback from your teams on how to make them better, which is another one of the Commission’s requirements.

What does ‘training’ mean?

According to the Commission, ‘training’ means ‘upskilling workgroups and individuals in their knowledge, attitude or skill set in relation to a topic’.

This could include:

• formal face-to-face sessions
• virtual workshops
• e-learning courses that are tailored to roles and responsibilities.

Training should also be tailored to your particular industry.

Why do you need to run both education and training?

The reason that you need to run education and training initiatives together is because the Commission’s research showed that a single education campaign or one-off training session is ineffective in driving long-term change.

Instead, education and training activities are most effective when they are combined.

No. 2: Train everyone in your business

You need to make sure you’re providing training to everyone in your business.

This includes:

• leaders
• managers
• workers.

You mustn’t forget your Board and C-Suite because the evidence shows that cultural, structural and systemic change will not happen unless it is driven from the top.

Yet, the WGEA 2023-2024 data shows that the majority of businesses are forgetting the Board when it comes to training. Only 55% of businesses are bothering to provide training when a new person joins the Board and the numbers drop even further when it comes to refresher training.

No. 3: Tailor training to specific roles

You need to stop offering generic training modules for all your people.

Instead, you need to offer training for everyone in your business and it needs to be specifically tailored to their role, including:

• board
• c-suite
• leaders
• managers
• human resources
• workers.

No. 4:  Run bystander training

You need to run bystander training for your employees, which will not only teach your people what behaviours to look out for but will also help build stronger teams.

At present, only 62% of businesses are running bystander training.

Bystander training should include self-care and vicarious trauma training for witnesses of incidents. At present, only 29% of employers include this in their training programs.

No. 5: Provide training more than once a year 

Ideally, you need to run training more than once a year.

This means that your people should receive training when they join your organisation.

They should also do refresher training annually.

If someone is promoted, they should receive training appropriate to their new role.

In addition, you should be offering bite-size pieces of training throughout the year to reinforce what your people have learned and help drive cultural change. The Commission’s research shows that a single educational campaign or one-off training session isn’t effective.

No. 6: Make training person-centred 

Your educational efforts need to place the learner at the centre of the learning experience.

What does this mean?

You need to design education and training that is suited to your employees. This involves factoring in:

• gender
• educational level
• culture
• language
• age.

If you are delivering training led by people within your business, make sure they have the knowledge, skills and experience necessary to engage a diverse range of learners.

You also need to be inclusive, which means you should:

• draft educational materials in clear and simple language
• use inclusive language by factoring in:
  • sex/gender
  • ability
  • age
  • educational background
  • culture
  • ethnicity
  • migration status.
  • First Nations background
  • disability.
• create examples or case studies that are both diverse and inclusive.

No. 7: Make training trauma-informed

In the context of sexual harassment training, being trauma-informed has two aspects.

First, it involves taking a trauma-informed approach to education and training, which involves ensuring the trainer or facilitator:

• is able to recognise the signs and symptoms of trauma
• encourages learners to take breaks when they need
• provides warnings about potentially triggering content to allow learners to manage their exposure to it.
• includes details about confidential support services.

Second, if you are training people to take disclosures, you need to teach them to do so in a trauma-informed way, which includes but is not limited to:

• listening without interruption or judgement
• believing and validating a person’s experiences
• providing information that will support them to make their own choices, as far as possible, in terms of what happens next.

At present, only 33% of private sector employees have trained, trauma-informed contact officers and only 31% are training employees respond to and manage disclosures in a trauma-informed way.

No. 8: Overlay training with principles of intersectionality

One aspect of training that often gets forgotten is the requirement to overlay any educational initiative with the principles of intersectionality. 

This means you need to weave in the diverse experiences and needs of different people including:

• women
• LGBTIQ+ workers,
• workers with a First Nations
• culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) workers
• culturally and racially marginalised (CARM) workers
• workers with a disability
• workers from a particular socio-economic class.

After all, a person’s experience of discrimination or sexual harassment may differ depending on their sex or gender identity, sexual orientation, whether they have a disability, whether they identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, whether they are from a CALD or CARM background or socio-economic class.

More specifically, these groups experience discrimination and harassment at rates higher than the general community.

At present, only 45% of employers are including an intersectional perspective in their training programs

No. 9: Use expert trainers 

If you are a medium (21-199 people) or large organisation (over 200 people), ideally, you should use an external expert to run your training.

This is because delivering the type of sophisticated and multi-dimensional training the Commission expects requires expert knowledge and understanding.

Ideally, the person leading the training should have the:

• expertise in discrimination and harassment
• the ability to deal with people

No. 10: Evaluate your training efforts

Finally, you need to evaluate the success or otherwise of your education and training efforts.

You need to take what you learn and use that information to improve what you are doing.

Ultimately, delivery, evaluation and improvement of your education and training programs should work in a continuous loop.

What are the benefits of this new kind of education and training for your business?

There are a number of benefits of introducing this kind of training in your business:

First, it is going to reduce the number of incidents of sex discrimination and sexual harassment because it addresses the causes of the problem.

Second, it will help make your business more equitable and inclusive, which has a range of benefits including:

• creating stronger teams because your people are trained look out for each other.
• winning top talent and improving employee satisfaction because Gen Z want to work in businesses with inclusive workplace cultures.
• increasing innovation and productivity because a culture of diversity and inclusivity brings more ideas to the table.
• making better decisions because a wide range of views are taken into account and, ultimately, this leads to better financial performance.

Do you need help with training? 

Dr Genevieve Burnett specialises in helping businesses and organisations run Respect@Work training. If you want expert advice on how to run training that is both engaging and drives cultural change in your business, get in touch now.