This is an edited extract from Our National Crisis: Violence Against Women & Children by Professor Kate Fitz-Gibbon, published as part of Monash University Publishing’s In the National Interest series.
In recent years, workplaces have been identified as one of the key sites for change, both in terms of progressing gender equality and supporting victims of domestic and family violence. So why do workplaces matter? Men and women spend a significant amount of their daily time in the workplace, so it can be heavily influenced by men’s violence against women, and in turn heavily influential as a location for improving victim-survivor safety.
Research shows that domestic and family violence can take victim-survivors out of the workforce, it can impact the degree of their contribution when in the workforce, and it can prevent victim-survivors from entering the workforce. A report by the Champions of Change Coalition found that 62 per cent of women who have experienced, or who are currently experiencing, domestic and family violence are in the paid workforce, and that nearly 50 per cent of women who disclosed that they had experienced domestic and family violence reported that it affected their capacity to get to work. Of these women, nearly one in five reported that the domestic violence followed them into the workplace; for example, in the form of abusive calls or emails, or their partner physically coming to the workplace.
In 2022, I was involved in a study at Monash which involved a survey of 3000 Australian victim-survivors of domestic and family violence who were employed in an Australian workplace at the time of their victimisation. Four in five victims surveyed reported that their job was impacted by their experience of violence. This included negative impacts on career progression, ability to concentrate at work, productivity, job enjoyment, and punctuality. Survey respondents additionally reported that their experience of domestic and family violence also impacted their relationship with work colleagues, leading to them socially withdrawing from their co-workers.
Compared to a decade ago we have significantly better research-based understandings of the impact of abuse on work performance. It is critical that these insights are utilised to inform workplace support practice and policies, ensuring that victim-survivors are not subjected to performance management or put at risk of demotion or employment termination in the midst of abuse.
Looking to perpetrators, global studies have found that up to 78 per cent of people who perpetrate domestic and family violence have done so during work hours using workplace resources. This is often referred to as ‘workplace interference strategies’, and our survey found that one in two victim-survivors had experienced this form of abuse. The impacts were immediate and wide-ranging. One victim-survivor described in our survey how, ‘By contacting me constantly at work I felt on edge and constant checking my phone which cause[d] prob[lems] in my performance.’
Impeding access to employment and performance at work was used as a key tactic by perpetrators to disrupt employment stability for the victim. Our research really drove home for me the need to ensure that our national and state-based responses recognise that the workplace and the perpetration of domestic, family and sexual violence in intimate partner relationships are not inseparable. Our policies, both within and beyond the workplace, must reflect this if we are to uphold a victim-centred approach.
We can put a cost on these workplace impacts. In Australia, it is estimated that violence against women costs $26 billion annually. Of this, $1.9 billion is attributed directly to business and productivity losses, with perpetrator absenteeism costing $443 million, victim-survivor absenteeism costing $860 million, and additional management costs of $96 million. Looking specifically at workplace sexual harassment, it has been estimated that this form of violence alone costs the Australian economy $3.5 billion annually, with $2.6 billion accorded to the lost productivity that occurs as a result; this includes the toll of absenteeism as well as that of increased staff turnover and pressure on managerial time.
Instead of just incurring the costs of this violence, workplaces can make a real difference in addressing violence from the outset, and helping to prevent it.
For a victim-survivor, the availability of workplace supports—including policies like the now nationally legislated paid family violence leave—can mean the difference between choosing to stay in an abusive relationship due to financial insecurity, and having the independence to safely leave an abusive relationship and to be supported to maintain employment while navigating that decision.
At the early intervention level, workplaces also have an opportunity to raise awareness of what constitutes a healthy and respectful relationship. Importantly, work-places can promote a culture where all violence, including coercive and controlling behaviours, are understood as unacceptable. Immunity from consequences and a lack of accountability for the use of violence in one setting will follow individuals into another setting. This has significant consequences for victims and for perpetrators.
I am hopeful that we are on the cusp of a significant increase in the attention paid to addressing violence in all its forms across Australian workplaces. In recent years I have observed the introduction of world-leading reforms that will propel this goal in workplaces, acting as a much-needed legislative stick. For example, the federal government has introduced access to ten days of paid domestic and family violence leave for all Australian employees, including casuals. We also now have the world-leading Respect@Work legislation, which imposes a positive obligation on Australian workplaces to prevent workplace sexual harassment.
These legislative changes are a critical piece of the domestic and family violence puzzle, but we also must do the trickier work of changing culture. It is imperative that we normalise help-seeking within the workplace, allowing individuals to feel comfortable and fully supported in doing so.