Workplace Responses

WORKPLACE RESPONSES

[Employees, Contractors, Volunteers]

The response of the workplace is important  to victims of domestic, family and sexualised violence for many possible reasons including their sense of self, social connections and safety. Importantly, having an income supports economic safety, keepings more options on the table for victims considering their future.

'Between 55 and 70 per cent of people experiencing domestic and family violence are in the paid workforce'.  [UN Women, 2017, ‘Taking the first step: Workplace responses to domestic and family violence'.] We invite institutions, organisations, services, and businesses to understand the importance of workplace responses to build on safety, uphold dignity and experiences of justice.

On this page you can explore lived experience insights relating to workplaces and explore workplace resources & initiatives. These map into the Futures Framework.

WORKPLACE RESOURCES & INSIGHTS

Guide to uplifting workplace responses

Workplaces, are well placed to provide timely and significant support to victims-survivors of domestic, family and sexualised violence.  We invite institutions, organisations, services, and businesses to understand the importance of workplace responses to build on safety, uphold dignity and experiences of justice.

Read and implement the Guide: Uplifting workplace responses (4th Edition - Updated Feb 2025). (includes the Workplace Intranet Content Guide).

My Support Options

Making decisions about your next steps relies on knowing what your options are. In some workplaces it can be difficult to find out what support options are available and how to access them. My Support Options is designed to share examples of what victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexualised violence have wished for and/or asked for from their workplace. The support options are ideas not advice. They are not exclusive or exhaustive. 

These are embedded in the adjacent work place guide and on a dedicated landing page - My Support Options.

Quality Response Continuum

What do we need to be thinking about when it comes to the quality of our responses to domestic, family and sexualised violence?

The quality response continuum is an Insight Exchange tool designed to support critical reflection about the quality of our responses. 

'There is no fence to sit on.'

View the Quality Response Continuum animation (3.30mins)

Follow My Lead (Workplace Sexual Harassment)

Read and share the free (donated) information and reflection resource: Follow My Lead - Workplace Sexual Harassment.

A person subjected to sexual harassment (whether silent or making an informal or formal report) needs us as responding colleagues and/or managers, to understand and be informed by lived-experience insights of workplace sexual harassment.

LIVED EXPERIENCE INSIGHTS RELATED TO WORKPLACES

In our listening to victim-survivors of violence and abuse, we heard examples that reveal the perpetrators choice to use violence and abuse. The actions described highlight the perpetrator is 'taking control' and 'intensifying control' - their actions show that they are 'in control' not 'out of control'.  Click on each tile below to open the related examples.

In our listening to victim-survivors of violence and abuse, we heard insights related to workplaces. Click on any tile below to open the examples.

WORKPLACE & EAP INTERSECTION

Does your workplace contract an Employee Assistance Program? 

Employee Assistance Professional Association of Australasia (EAPAA) provider members (76) throughout Australasia oversee over 11,500 organisations, providing coverage to 9.4 million direct employees. (Source: Engagement Rate of the Employee Assistance Professional Association of Australasia (Inc.) October 2021).

The readiness and quality of Employee Assistance Program responses to domestic and family violence matter. Every EAP. Any workplace. 

In 2022, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) reported a range of measures that were highly prevalent among organisations offering support to employees experiencing domestic and family violence. 92.8% of organisations offered access to their company’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP).

But how much, how well and in what ways does the procuring workplace assume or ask about the quality of responses to domestic, family and sexualised violence?

Employee Assistance Providers (EAPs)

We invite EAP providers, teams and individuals to build on understanding of and responses to domestic, family and sexualised violence through the free (donated) Insight Exchange modules.

The modules are: Any Responder (new 2025), Foundations (New 2025), Strangulation, An Introduction to Economic Abuse (CWES), Workplace Sexual Harassment.

In addition to the free (donated) modules, EAP providers, teams and individuals can also explore the insights and materials on Insight Exchange in alignment with the guidance on using Insight Exchange.

What is new? Read the Insight Exchange Updates. | Looking for something? Use the search function. | Can't find it? Check if it has been archived.

SCHEDULED FOR ARCHIVE

The following items will be archived at the time specified.

June 2025