Workplace Compliance

Legacy workplace compliance regimes have tended to deal with risk mitigation from a ‘risk versus cost’ perspective. This has resulted in much time and money being directed at work health and safety from a physical risk perspective. This common sense approach has resulted in safety being regarded as one of the most important considerations in business. […]

Quick Answer The real reason for workplace compliance goes beyond the law or the audit. It is that everyone has the right to be safe at work and to be treated fairly and with respect. When people understand that reason, compliance stops feeling like a box to tick and becomes part of how the workplace […]

Quick Answer Lip service is support that is said but not acted on. In the workplace, it shows up when leaders talk about safety, respect and equal opportunity, then excuse poor behaviour from people they value. Staff notice the gap quickly, and it damages trust and workplace culture. This post is the sixth of the […]

Quick Answer Training tells people what is expected. An incident reporting policy tells them what to do when something goes wrong: what to report, who to tell, how to report it and what happens next. Without one, incidents such as bullying, harassment or unsafe work often go unreported, and leaders cannot see what is happening. […]

Quick Answer A workplace compliance system only protects you if people use it. Many businesses buy one, sign it off and assume they are covered, then find years later that much of the workforce never completed the training or read the policies. Good compliance program implementation means making the system simple to use, giving managers […]

Quick Answer The right protection for workplace compliance comes down to three things: education, workplace policies and a system that records both. It should cover the areas every Australian business shares: work health and safety, privacy, workplace bullying, sexual harassment and equal employment opportunity, with internet and social media as a sixth. How much you […]

Quick Answer Thinking “it won’t happen to me” is a risky assumption for any business, and the national numbers do not support it. One in three Australian workers has experienced workplace sexual harassment in the past five years, and 188 workers died from traumatic injuries at work in 2024. This post sets out those numbers […]

Quick Answer The cost of non-compliance is rarely a single fine. One safety, privacy or harassment incident can bring lost productivity, staff turnover, compensation claims, legal costs, damages and, at the serious end, prosecution. Maximum penalties have also risen sharply since this article was first written in 2016. This post covers the first of the […]