In December 2022 Positive Duty obligations came into effect for all employers in Australia. The Positive Duty legislation requires employers and businesses to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate unlawful sex discrimination and harassment. It applies across all Australian workplaces to prevent sexual harassment, sex-based harassment, hostile work environments and victimisation.

The Positive Duty Obligation comes under the Anti-Discrimination and Human Rights Legislation Amendment (Respect at Work) Act 2022.

The new obligation, or key difference, is that prior to this amendment, all employers were obligated to investigate and take action if a case of sex discrimination or sexual harassment was reported. It relied on a reactive approach to dealing with a situation that had already occurred. The new legislation now requires all employers to do whatever they can to stop anything from happening in the first place!

The ARHC's Seven Standards

The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has outlined seven standards that business must meet, to satisfy their positive duty obligations:

1. Leadership – senior leaders must understand their obligations, model respectful behaviour and actively promote safe workplace culture
2. Culture – businesses must foster an inclusive culture where workers feel safe, respected and empowered to speak up
3. Knowledge – businesses must educate employees about safe workplace behaviour reporting channels and positive duty
4. Risk Management – managers must continually identify, assess and control risks related to discrimination and harassment
5. Support – Employers must provide timely, confidential and person-centred support to affected workers
6. Reporting and Response – businesses must maintain clear, accessible reporting channels and respond to complaints consistently, fairly and confidentially
7. Monitoring, Evaluation and Transparency – leaders must regularly collect and analyse data on workplace conduct to improve prevention strategies

Practical Steps to Meet Your Positive Duty Obligations

Effective Ways to Train Your Employees

This list can seem overwhelming to some businesses; especially about where to start with meeting these obligations, so I’ve outlined some practical steps for employers  below to get you started:

1. Conduct a staff survey to find out what your employees see as the biggest risk areas. In many of the surveys I have assisted clients with, the biggest risks have been things external to the daily operations of the business: things such as employees attending conferences with a large number of strangers; employees travelling alone and arriving at hotels or accommodation after dark, or employees having to attend private residential premises, without safety guards in place. However, it is possible that some of the biggest risks are inside your business – and you need to know!

2. Once you understand where employees feel the biggest risks are, you can consult with them about how to minimise or eliminate the biggest risks. The legislation requires employers to take proportionate measures – it doesn’t mean that all of a sudden two employees have to undertake a task or visit, or that your employees can’t attend conferences or travel alone – it’s about understanding where the risks are and then coming up with reasonable ways to mitigate them.
   
   I have formed focus groups to assist with this in some businesses, and in others I have asked all staff for their ideas. Consulting is key – employers don’t have to have all the answers. Your employees will have really great ideas on how to help. Remember that 1% of 100 brains is better than 100% of one 😊

3. Conduct regular mandatory in-person training of your employees. Make sure that every employee understands what respect at work looks like; what behaviours are okay and which are not, and what to do about it if you see, hear or experience something inappropriate.
   
   Please be aware that online training sessions, especially when employees are not allocated specific time to complete the training, may not meet the requirement for training. In fact, a recent decision of the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission found that the employer (The Star Entertainment Group) was ‘vicariously liable’ of sexual harassment of an employee because its training consisted of online training modules, largely undertaken while employees were also ‘working’. It is clear from this decision that ‘set and forget’ or ‘tick and flick’ training is not enough to meet your obligation, and it certainly will be no defence for the employer if sexual harassment claims are brought. (If you are interested in learning more about the case cited above, check out: Loquias v The Star Entertainment Group and John Dwyer [2026] QIRC 023)
   
   Effective ways to ensure your employees are adequately trained include:
   
   • Run a Respect at Work training session annually (we can run this for you – 1.5 to 2 hour session)
     
   • Build a Respect at Work session into your induction / onboarding program for all new employees
     
   • Ensure leaders call out inappropriate behaviour straight away – they set the tone on what is and isn’t acceptable
     
   • Ensure your policies are up to date and that employees are provided time to read them as part of their induction or onboarding

4. Create a culture of respect. Again, this goes back to ensuring you have the right people in leadership positions and that they do the right things. They need to model appropriate behaviour and call out behaviours that are not okay.
   
5. Update your policies to reference the positive duty obligations and ensure your Sexual Harassment and Bullying policies are fully fleshed out and up to date.
   

Respect at Work Training

If you want to take a really positive and proactive approach to ensuring your business culture is where you want and need it to be, along with running Respect at Work training, we recommend running a Core Values session with your team, to develop a set of internal core values that everyone is expected to demonstrate. Involving the team in designing these means buy-in from the get-go. Internal core values act as a compass that guides employees’ daily actions, decisions and behaviours and sets people up for success, and having a set of values is a proven and proactive way of ensuring you have a safe and respectful work environment.

If you need help understanding or meeting your Positive Duty Obligations, please don’t hesitate to reach out – we are always here to help. If you would like one of our team to come onsite and run a Respect at Work training session or Core Values session for you – ditto! Reach out – we love to assist our clients with these!