Organisations and businesses have legal obligations to prevent certain types of unacceptable workplace behaviours. Unacceptable workplace behaviours include behaviours that are unlawful or unsafe.

Organisations and businesses have obligations to protect:

• employees and independent contractors
• prospective workers
• volunteers and interns
• workers of other businesses, and
• some third parties such as patrons, clients or members of the public.

Your organisation or business needs to decide for itself what preventative actions would help stop unacceptable behaviour from happening in your particular organisation or business. No one knows your organisation better than you do. This means that you are best placed to know what’s needed and what will work for your organisation. 

The type of preventative action you take will also depend on what is reasonable for your organisation or business. The size of your organisation and the number of workers you have will shape what is reasonable for your organisation to do. For example, it may not be ‘reasonable’ for a very small business with one employee to have a plan for supporting its leadership team.

Preventative actions include: 

• Creating a culture of respect
• Supporting your leaders to prevent unacceptable behaviour and create a culture of respect
• Taking a risk management approach to identifying and preventing unacceptable behaviours
• Making a plan to prevent and respond to unacceptable behaviours
• Having a written policy
• Training and communication
• Consulting with your workers.

Complying with the law: codes, standards and keeping records

Businesses and organisations have legal obligations to prevent certain types of unacceptable workplace behaviour.

This page has information to help your organisation comply with: 

• Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) minimum standards for preventing unlawful and unacceptable workplace behaviour. You can find these in their Guidelines for complying with the positive duty.
• Commonwealth and some state and territory governments work health and safety codes of practices relating to psychosocial hazards and gender-based violence in the workplace. Learn more about managing psychosocial hazards in the workplace.

There is also information on this page about record keeping. The law requires organisations and businesses to create and maintain certain records. Good record keeping is also essential to creating a safer work environment.

Create a culture of respect 

Respectful workplace cultures promote positive behaviour. They also empower people to speak up if they see or hear something that troubles them or somebody else. 

Creating a culture of respect helps deter unacceptable behaviours and provides support to those who may experience it. A culture of respect means: 

• Reinforcing expectations about appropriate behaviour
• Supporting workers to challenge unacceptable behaviour if they see it (without punitive consequences), regardless of seniority, status or position
• Being clear about the risks of unacceptable behaviour and how you deal with it in your workplace
• Making sure you deal with unacceptable behaviour when it happens, rather than ignoring it
• Making people accountable for their actions if they engage in unacceptable behaviour
• Supporting people who experience or witness unacceptable behaviour. 

Record keeping — Keep a record of the steps you take to create a culture of respect. You can record these steps in your documented prevention and response plan.

Minimum standards — Workplace culture is one of the seven minimum standards in the AHRC’s Guidelines for complying with the positive duty.

Support your leaders 

Support your leaders to prevent unacceptable workplace behaviour.

This means supporting them to:

• Speak to workers directly about respectful behaviour in the workplace and why it matters to the organisation or business
• Role model appropriate behaviours themselves
• Recognise when other workers have played a role in preventing unacceptable behaviour. 

Your organisation or business can help them to do these things by:

• Having a policy that applies to leaders and managers in the organisation and that is enforced regardless of the person’s position
• Making sure those leaders in your organisation who manage people have the skills and knowledge they need to prevent unlawful and unacceptable behaviour. Make your leaders accountable for the respectful and safe conduct of their team. 

Minimum standards — Leadership is one of the seven minimum standards in the AHRC’s Guidelines for complying with the positive duty. 

WHS codes — Leadership and culture are covered by work health and safety codes of practices relating to psychosocial hazards and gender-based violence in the workplace. 

Take a risk management approach 

Take a risk management approach to identifying and preventing unacceptable behaviours as a type of psychosocial hazard. A psychosocial hazard is anything that could cause psychological harm (e.g. harm someone’s mental health) and sometimes their physical health. 

Learn more about the four-step risk management approach to managing hazards and risks. 

WHS laws — Some state and territory work health and safety laws also require PBCUs to have certain things in place to prevent unlawful behaviour as a type of psychosocial hazard, such as a documented prevention and response plan.

Minimum standards — Risk management and Monitoring, evaluation and transparency are part of the minimum standards in the AHRC’s Guidelines for complying with the positive duty.

Record keeping — Document your risk assessment approach.

Make a prevention and response plan

A prevention and response plan can help you document and manage how your organisation is working to preventing unacceptable workplace behaviour.

It also demonstrates to your workers that you have a plan in place, and that their feedback on behaviour in the workplace matters. 

Your plan should:

• Accommodate the needs of your workers (e.g. their age, language, cultural considerations or accessibility needs)
• Be monitored and evaluated to see how it is working and whether changes are needed
• Be documented and readily available to workers.

WHS laws — Some state and territory work health and safety laws, such as Queensland, require business and organisations (or PCBUs) to have a prevention and response plan. 

Minimum standards — The AHRC expects businesses and organisations to have a prevention and response plan. This is set out in their Guidelines for complying with the positive duty.

Have a written policy 

A written policy can help your organisation communicate its expectations and standards to workers and other third parties. 

It is also an effective tool to help you:

• Enforce standards of behaviour
• Set out the consequences if the standards are not met.

What to include in your policy

An effective policy can include:

• Your organisation’s position on unacceptable workplace behaviour. For example, that your organisation has a zero-tolerance approach.
• What you mean by ‘unacceptable workplace behaviour’. It can help to include some examples.
• The obligations and responsibilities your workers have to:
  • behave appropriately, and
  • report unacceptable behaviour.
• The obligations and responsibilities your management and leadership have, including to act on and report unacceptable behaviour.
• Consequences for workers, including leaders and managers, found to have engaged in unacceptable workplace behaviour or for any other breaches of the policy.
• How workers can raise a concern about unacceptable workplace behaviour.
• How the organisation will or may respond to disclosures or complaints of unacceptable behaviour. These responses may be different depending on what has happened.
• Requirements and obligations relating to confidentiality and victimisation.
• Where workers can find support if they experience or witness unacceptable behaviour.

Minimum standards — Implementing a policy is also part of the knowledge standard set by the AHRC in its Guidelines for complying with the positive duty.

The AHRC also has a list of items that should be included as core policy content in any written policy about certain types of unacceptable workplace behaviours. Find the list on page 51 of their Guidelines for complying with the positive duty.

Training and communication

Explain your expectations to workers

This is a key part of setting your standards of behaviour (and implementing your policy, if you have one).

Make sure you communicate in a way that is appropriate for your workers. It’s important for you to make sure that workers understand the training and instructions you give them. 

For example, your workers may:

• need information in languages other than English
• prefer verbal communication with the opportunity to ask questions, rather than just being given a written document to read.

The Australian Human Rights Commission has a range of free resources in different languages.

Record keeping — Keep records, such as training records, to show the steps you have taken. 

Regularly remind your workers of your expectations 

It’s important to regularly communicate and reinforce your expectations.

This may mean training your workers more than once. 

If your organisation or business currently only provide instruction and training when someone starts work with you, think about how you might reinforce expectations over time.  

Communicate your standards of behaviour to third parties

Under WHS laws, and some anti-discrimination legislation, organisations and businesses are responsible for the safety of their workers when they interact with third parties. 

Third parties can include contractors, agents, volunteers, other businesses, customers, visitors and audiences. 

Communicate to third parties:

• your organisation’s expectations and standards of behaviour
• the possible consequences if those standards are not met. 

Some examples of communicating include:

• entry conditions to ticketed events
• signage about expected behaviour in a venue
• preparing a Supplier Code of Conduct that applies to independent contractors.

Your communication needs to be what is ‘reasonably practicable’. For example, taking into account:

• the size of your business
• the nature of the risks (e.g. audience interaction)
• the type of interaction or work arrangement. 

Record keeping — Keep a record of how you communicate your standards of behaviour, including copies of the policies or documents you give or display to third parties, and when you do it.

Consult your workers 

Consultation with workers can help you:

• Monitor standards of behaviour
• Evaluate how effective your preventative actions are
• Be open about the risks of unlawful and unacceptable behaviour. 

Consultation is also one of the required steps in the risk management process. 

Record keeping — Keep a record of how and when you consult with workers.