As a lawyer and training in the Equal Opportunity and Bullying space, I often meet with potential clients and walk them through the 10 step risk assessment process that takes about 40 minutes to complete. At the end of the assessment the workplace has an objective, accurate assessment of the risk they are carrying in relation to liability if an employee said or did something unlawful.

If the risk is calculated as being high then the next step is to implement the strategies we provide to decrease the risk rating.

I remember a client who I assessed who had a high risk rating. They had nothing in place, their policies were inadequate, they had never trained their staff and had not invested time and money in skilling up their managers to make complaints.

They chose to do nothing to alter this situation, deciding that there were other priorities to work on.

A year later I received a phone call late on a Friday afternoon from the same HR Manager informing me that one of her staff had acted sexually inappropriately to another staff and she knew they were ultimately responsible for his actions.

We then spent the next few months working through the problem and ultimately minimising their risk. A key component of the actions we took was to educate the staff in relation to their rights and responsibilities in relation to workplace harassment, discrimination and bullying.

If you want to be proactive instead of reactive when it comes to workplace behaviours then Zulu Labs, in conjunction with a lawyer have created a range of on-line modules to educate your staff in relation to workplace behaviours.

This post was written by Franca Sala Tenna from our content Partner – EEO Specialists. To view our modules click here.