Quick Answer:
Workplace harassment creates four separate exposures for an Australian employer, and most organisations only manage one of them. There is the positive duty under the Sex Discrimination Act, which requires proactive measures rather than a response to complaints. There is the work health and safety duty, because harassment is a psychosocial hazard. There are Fair Work protections covering adverse action and stop-bullying orders. And there is vicarious liability, which makes the employer answerable for what a worker did unless reasonable steps were taken. Deloitte Access Economics, commissioned by Treasury for the Respect@Work inquiry, put the cost of workplace sexual harassment at $3.8 billion, with employers bearing 70% of it.
In this guide
- The 11 types and the risk each creates
- The 4 exposures behind them
- What workplace harassment costs your business
- The positive duty
- Harassment as a work health and safety hazard
- Fair Work protections and stop-bullying orders
- Vicarious liability and reasonable steps
- What evidence discharges the duty
- 6 mistakes that increase business risk
- What to do in the next 90 days
- Bringing it together
- Frequently asked questions
There are 11 types of workplace harassment an Australian employer needs to recognise, and each one creates a different business risk.
Most guidance stops at explaining what the behaviours are. That matters, and it is covered in detail in the 12 most common types of workplace harassment.
This guide covers the other half of workplace harassment: what each of those behaviours exposes your organisation to, what the law now requires you to do before anything happens, and what evidence you would need to produce if it did.
This guide covers Australian obligations. Work health and safety duties vary between states and territories, and anti-discrimination law applies at both Commonwealth and state level.
The 11 Types Of Workplace Harassment And The Risk Each Creates
The eleven types below are the ones this guide has always covered.
What follows is not a definition of each, which is handled in the 12 most common types of workplace harassment, but the exposure each one creates and the control that most reduces it.
| Type | Primary exposure | The control that reduces it most |
|---|---|---|
| Discriminatory harassment | Anti-discrimination law, Commonwealth and state. Vicarious liability | Recorded decision criteria in recruitment, promotion and rostering |
| Harassment based on religion | Anti-discrimination law. Adverse action where it affects employment decisions | Accommodation requests handled through a documented, consistent process |
| Personal harassment | WHS psychosocial duty. Stop-bullying orders where it is repeated | Manager capability to intervene early, and a record that they were trained to |
| Physical harassment | WHS primary duty. Potentially criminal. Vicarious liability | Immediate response protocol, and elimination of the conditions enabling contact |
| Power harassment | WHS psychosocial duty. Adverse action. Positive duty where sex-based | Reporting routes that bypass the direct manager, and promotion criteria that consider conduct |
| Psychological harassment | WHS psychosocial duty. Workers compensation for psychological injury | Workload and role clarity treated as hazards in the risk assessment framework, not HR matters |
| Sexual harassment | Positive duty. Vicarious liability. WHS. Fair Work orders | Proactive risk assessment, leadership modelling, recorded training refreshed on a cycle |
| Third-party harassment | WHS duty extends to workers exposed to clients, customers and contractors | Design controls for client-facing and lone work, and a route to report about non-employees |
| Verbal harassment | WHS psychosocial duty. Stop-bullying orders | Behavioural standards enforced consistently, with investigation records showing consistency. This is cultural risk management in practice |
| Cyberbullying and online harassment | WHS duty applies to work-related conduct outside the workplace and outside hours | Explicit policy coverage of digital channels, and out-of-hours contact expectations |
| Retaliation and victimisation | Adverse action under the Fair Work Act. Victimisation under the positive duty | Manager training on what happens after a complaint, and monitoring of reporters’ outcomes. See HR risk management |
Two patterns are worth pulling out. Sexual harassment is the only type triggering all four exposures at once, which is why it warrants a separate proactive programme rather than inclusion in a general policy.
And retaliation is the only type an employer creates entirely through its own response, which makes it the most preventable and the most self-inflicted.
The 4 Exposures Workplace Harassment Creates
Employers commonly treat workplace harassment as a single problem handled by one policy.
It is four obligations, arising under different laws, tested in different forums, with different evidence requirements.
| Exposure | The law behind it | Who enforces it | What it actually tests |
|---|---|---|---|
| Positive duty | Sex Discrimination Act | Australian Human Rights Commission | What you did before anything was reported |
| Work health and safety | Model WHS laws. Harassment is a psychosocial hazard | State and territory WHS regulators | Whether the hazard was controlled using the hierarchy of control |
| Fair Work protections | Fair Work Act, including adverse action and stop-bullying orders | Fair Work Commission | How you responded, and what happened to the person who raised it |
| Vicarious liability | Sex Discrimination Act and equivalent state legislation | Courts and tribunals | Whether you took all reasonable steps. Training and policy records are the evidence |
Why this matters more than the definitions
An organisation can correctly identify every type of workplace harassment, respond well to every complaint, and still fail three of these four. The positive duty and the work health and safety duty both ask what you did in the months before an incident, and a complaint-response process produces no evidence of that.
What Workplace Harassment Costs Your Business
The workplace harassment figure worth knowing comes from Deloitte Access Economics, commissioned by Treasury to inform the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Respect@Work national inquiry.
It estimated the total cost of workplace sexual harassment to the Australian economy at $3.8 billion, and described that as a conservative estimate.
| Component | Amount | Who bears it |
|---|---|---|
| Lost productivity | $2.6 billion | Largely employers |
| Other financial costs | $0.9 billion | Split across employers, government and individuals |
| Total | $3.8 billion | Employers 70%, government 23%, individuals 7% |
The 70% share is the number to take to an executive. This is not a cost carried mainly by the individual or absorbed by the public system.
It sits with employers, and the largest single component is lost productivity rather than legal settlements, which means it accrues quietly whether or not a complaint is ever made.
A note on a figure you will see quoted elsewhere
A widely circulated claim puts the cost of workplace bullying and harassment to the Australian economy at up to $36 billion a year. That number originates in an older estimate of a broad range for bullying, not from the Australian Human Rights Commission, and it is frequently quoted as a flat figure when it was the top of a range. If you are building a business case on workplace harassment, use the Deloitte figure and cite it. A number your audience can check is worth more than a bigger one they cannot.
The Positive Duty: The Change Most Employers Missed
The positive duty under the Sex Discrimination Act requires employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sexual harassment, sex discrimination, hostile workplace environments and victimisation, so far as possible.
The word doing the work is eliminate. The obligation is proactive.
Responding properly to workplace harassment complaints, however well you do it, does not discharge it, because the duty attaches before anything is reported.
The Australian Human Rights Commission has enforcement powers in relation to the duty, which means compliance can be examined without any individual making a complaint.
| What the positive duty expects | What a complaint-response process produces |
|---|---|
| Evidence that risk was assessed before an incident | Evidence that an incident was investigated |
| Leadership visibly setting and modelling standards | A signed policy |
| Training delivered, recorded and refreshed | A training module that exists |
| Accessible reporting routes people trust and use | A reporting channel that exists |
| Monitoring of whether measures are working | Case outcomes |
| Consultation with workers about the risks they see | An annual engagement survey |
Read the right-hand column honestly. Most organisations have all of it, and none of it evidences the positive duty on its own.
Harassment As A Work Health And Safety Hazard
Harassment is a psychosocial hazard. Safe Work Australia lists bullying, harassment and violence among the psychosocial hazards employers must manage, which brings harassment squarely within the primary duty in regulation 34 and the hierarchy of control in regulation 36.
That has a consequence most employers have not absorbed, and it is the single biggest gap in how workplace harassment is managed.
Under the hierarchy of control you must eliminate the hazard so far as is reasonably practicable before relying on administrative measures.
Training and a policy are administrative controls, sitting near the bottom.
The question a WHS regulator will ask
What did you change about the work itself? Rostering that leaves a lone worker with an aggressive client, a culture where a senior person is not challenged, unclear reporting lines, or performance pressure that normalises abusive behaviour are all design problems. A regulator will ask what was considered above the training.
Victoria has gone furthest. The Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025 commenced on 1 December 2025, with a compliance code from the same date, expressly covering bullying, sexual harassment, aggression and violence.
See WorkSafe Victoria, and psychosocial hazards at work for the full picture.
Fair Work Protections And Stop-Bullying Orders
The Fair Work Commission can make orders to stop bullying and to stop sexual harassment at work.
A worker can apply while still employed, and the Commission’s focus is on preventing the conduct continuing rather than on compensation.
The exposure that catches employers by surprise sits elsewhere, in adverse action.
If a worker raises a complaint and is subsequently treated less favourably, whether through a roster change, a missed promotion or exclusion from a project, that can constitute adverse action taken because of a workplace right.
The most expensive management error in this area
Not the original conduct. It is what happens to the person who reported it. A poorly handled complaint usually produces one matter. Adverse action following that complaint produces a second, separate and often larger one, and it is entirely avoidable through manager training that is recorded.
The Fair Work Ombudsman and the Fair Work Commission both publish guidance on what is covered.
Vicarious Liability And Reasonable Steps
An employer can be held liable for workplace harassment committed by a worker.
The defence is that all reasonable steps were taken to prevent it, and the strength of that defence is decided almost entirely by records.
| The claim you will need to make | The evidence that supports it | Where it usually fails |
|---|---|---|
| We had a clear policy | The policy, with its version history | The policy exists and nobody can show who read it |
| Our people knew the standard | Acknowledgement records with dates and versions per person | Acknowledgements were collected once at induction, years ago |
| We trained them | Completion records by person and course version, refreshed on a cycle | Training completed once, with no refresh and no record of content |
| Managers knew how to respond | Separate manager training, recorded | Managers received the same generic module as everyone else |
| We had a reporting route | The route, and data showing it was used and answered | The route exists and has received no reports in two years, which reads as distrust rather than absence of harassment |
| We acted on what we knew | Investigation records showing consistent handling | Similar matters handled differently with no documented reason |
The fifth row is the counter-intuitive one. A reporting channel with no reports is not evidence that nothing is happening.
Reporting rates are one of the clearest signals of a risk-aware culture. In front of a tribunal it tends to read as evidence that people did not trust it, which is closer to the truth in most organisations.
What Evidence Discharges The Duty
Every exposure above is ultimately tested by asking for records at a past date. This is the section to act on if you only act on one.
| When this happens | What you will be asked to produce | How quickly you should manage it |
|---|---|---|
| A harassment complaint | Your policy, the date this employee acknowledged it, their training record, and how comparable matters were handled | Same day, from records that already exist |
| An AHRC inquiry into the positive duty | Evidence of risk assessment, leadership action, training, reporting routes and monitoring, all predating any complaint | This cannot be assembled afterwards. It exists or it does not |
| A WHS regulator visit | The psychosocial hazard in your risk register, its control, its owner, its review date | Minutes, if it is registered |
| A stop-bullying or stop-sexual-harassment application | What you knew, when, and what you did about it | Immediately |
| An adverse action claim after a complaint | Documented reasons for every decision affecting that person since they reported | Immediately, and only if those reasons were recorded at the time |
The cheapest control available
Policy acknowledgements and training completions recorded with a date and a version, refreshed on a cycle. They cost almost nothing to capture as work happens and are effectively impossible to reconstruct later. They are also the first thing requested in every row above. See audit-ready risk management for what that evidence standard looks like across the business.
6 Mistakes That Increase Your Business Risk
- Treating the policy as the control: A policy nobody has acknowledged is a document. The acknowledgement record with a date and version is the control.
- Training everyone identically: Managers face different decisions to team members. Generic training for both is the version least likely to change behaviour and least persuasive as evidence of reasonable steps.
- Waiting for complaints: The positive duty and the work health and safety duty both attach before anything is reported. A complaint-driven approach produces no evidence for either.
- Handling similar matters differently: Inconsistency converts one matter into evidence of a systemic problem, and it is the pattern most likely to be examined.
- Managing the person and not the work: Moving an individual resolves an instance. If the rostering, supervision or pressure that produced it is unchanged, the hazard remains and the hierarchy of control has not been applied.
- Ignoring what happens after a report: Adverse action following a complaint is a separate and often larger exposure than the original conduct, and it is created entirely by the employer’s own response.
What To Do In The Next 90 Days
| Weeks | Action | What you hold at the end |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | Register harassment as a psychosocial hazard in your risk register, with a named owner and a review date. Not an HR matter, a register entry that survives scrutiny | The single artefact a WHS regulator asks for first |
| 3 to 5 | Audit your records. For a sample of employees, can you produce the policy version they acknowledged, the date, and their training completion? | An honest read on your reasonable steps defence |
| 6 to 8 | Deliver separate manager training on responding to a report and on adverse action. Record it | The control that prevents the second, larger claim |
| 9 to 11 | Review the last two years of matters for consistency of handling. Document any differences and why | Evidence of consistency, or an early warning that you lack it |
| 12 to 13 | Assess the work design risks: lone work, client aggression, unclear reporting lines, pressure points | Controls above the administrative level, which is what the hierarchy requires |
If you only do the first two weeks
Register it as a psychosocial hazard with an owner and a review date. It costs an afternoon, it is the first thing a work health and safety regulator asks for, and almost no organisation has done it because harassment is filed under human resources rather than safety.
Bringing It Together
Workplace harassment is not one obligation. It is four, arising under different laws, tested in different forums, and three of the four ask what you did before anything was reported.
The cost is real and it sits with employers.
Deloitte Access Economics put the total cost of workplace sexual harassment to the Australian economy at $3.8 billion, with employers bearing 70%, and the largest component is lost productivity rather than settlements. That accrues whether or not a complaint is ever made.
The practical work of managing workplace harassment is unglamorous, and it is what every one of the four exposures tests: harassment registered as a psychosocial hazard with an owner, policy acknowledgements and training records captured as work happens, managers trained separately on what to do after a report, and consistency in how matters are handled.
None of that requires a programme. It requires deciding that this sits in your risk framework rather than only in your policy library.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What are an employer’s legal obligations for workplace harassment in Australia?
Four separate obligations. The positive duty under the Sex Discrimination Act requires proactive measures to eliminate sexual harassment, sex discrimination, hostile environments and victimisation. Work health and safety law requires harassment to be managed as a psychosocial hazard using the hierarchy of control. The Fair Work Act provides stop-bullying and stop-sexual-harassment orders and adverse action protections. And vicarious liability makes an employer answerable for a worker’s conduct unless all reasonable steps were taken.
2. What does workplace harassment cost Australian employers?
Deloitte Access Economics, commissioned by Treasury for the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Respect@Work inquiry, estimated the total cost of workplace sexual harassment to the Australian economy at $3.8 billion, described as a conservative estimate. Employers bear about 70% of that, government 23% and individuals 7%. Lost productivity accounts for $2.6 billion of the total, which means most of the cost accrues without any complaint being made.
3. What is the positive duty and how is it different from responding to complaints?
The positive duty requires employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sexual harassment, sex discrimination, hostile workplace environments and victimisation, so far as possible. It is proactive, so it attaches before anything is reported. Responding well to complaints does not discharge it, because the duty asks what you did beforehand. The Australian Human Rights Commission has enforcement powers in relation to it, so compliance can be examined without an individual complaint.
4. Is workplace harassment a work health and safety issue?
Yes. Safe Work Australia lists bullying, harassment and violence among the psychosocial hazards employers must manage, which brings harassment within the primary duty to manage risk and the hierarchy of control. The practical consequence is that elimination comes before administrative measures, so a policy and a training module are the weakest available controls and a regulator will ask what was considered above them.
5. Can an employer be liable for harassment committed by an employee?
Yes, through vicarious liability. The defence is that all reasonable steps were taken to prevent it, and that defence is decided almost entirely by records: the policy and its versions, acknowledgement records per person with dates, training completions refreshed on a cycle, separate manager training, and investigation records showing consistent handling. Steps taken without records are difficult to rely on.
6. What is the most common employer mistake after a harassment complaint?
Treating the person who reported it less favourably afterwards, whether through a roster change, a missed opportunity or exclusion. That can constitute adverse action taken because of a workplace right, and it creates a second claim that is separate from and often larger than the original matter. It is also entirely preventable through recorded manager training.
7. Does the work health and safety duty cover harassment outside the workplace or after hours?
It can, where the conduct is work-related. Online harassment through work channels, conduct at work-related functions, and contact outside hours connected to work can all fall within the duty. Policies limited to physical premises and business hours leave a gap that a regulator or tribunal will not.
8. Where should harassment sit, with HR or with safety?
Both, and the common failure is that it sits only with human resources. As a psychosocial hazard it belongs in the risk register with an owner, a control and a review date, which is what a work health and safety regulator asks for first. Human resources owns the response, the training and the records. An organisation where harassment appears nowhere in the risk register has a gap regardless of how good its policy is.
Sources
- Australian Human Rights Commission, Positive duty under the Sex Discrimination Act
- Australian Human Rights Commission, Respect@Work national inquiry report 2020
- Deloitte Access Economics, The economic costs of sexual harassment in the workplace
- Safe Work Australia, Psychosocial hazards
- Work Health and Safety Regulations 2011 (Cth), regulation 34, Duty to manage risks
- Work Health and Safety Regulations 2011 (Cth), regulation 36, Hierarchy of control
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination at work
- Fair Work Commission, Bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination
- WorkSafe Victoria, New regulations make psychological health a priority
See how Sentrient supports psychological safety
Harassment is a psychosocial hazard with the same duty as a physical one, and the same need for evidence. Sentrient helps Australian employers identify, control and record it alongside everything else in the register.
Disclaimer: This article is general information, not legal advice. Anti-discrimination and work health and safety obligations vary between states and territories. Figures cited were checked against the responsible source in August 2026. Confirm your position with the relevant regulator or a qualified adviser before acting.
Read More About Sexual Harassment:
- What Are Examples Of Personal Harassment In The Workplace
- How To Deal With Verbal Abuse In The Workplace?
- What Are Examples Of Religious Harassment In The Workplace
- What Is Cyber Harassment And How To Stop It
- What Are Examples Of Physical Harassment In The Workplace
- What Is Verbal Abuse In The Workplace?
