Third Party Harassment At Work

Third party harassment at work is harassment by someone who is not an employee. A client, a patient, a resident, a contractor or a member of the public.

The employer duty does not change because the person is external. Under work health and safety law the obligation is owed to the worker, whoever creates the risk, and harassment from third parties is a recognised psychosocial hazard.

What does change is reporting. Staff in care, retail, hospitality and community services often treat it as part of the job, and are rarely asked about it directly. Absence of reports is not absence of harm.

Practical controls are different too. You cannot train a customer. You can change rostering so nobody works alone with a known risk, give staff explicit authority to end an interaction, and record incidents involving external people.

Safe Work Australia covers psychosocial hazards. This is general information rather than legal advice.

See Sentrient’s occupational violence and aggression training and incident reporting software.