Webinar: Sexual Harassment as a Psychosocial Risk

The Australian Institute of Health & Safety in partnership with K & L Gates invites you to join our upcoming webinar on Thursday 8 June titled:  Sexual Harassment as a Psychosocial Risk. 

Sexual harassment in the workplace poses a significant risk to the health and safety of workers. For many organisations, sexual harassment is treated as a HR issue, with a focus on reacting and responding to complaints and incidents.

The psychosocial safety amendments recently made at Commonwealth and State level and the introduction of a positive duty on employers to “take reasonable and proportionate measures” to eliminate, as far as possible, unlawful sex discrimination, sexual harassment and victimisation at work require employers to direct their focus to elimination and prevention of sexual harassment in the workplace.

The new regulations require a more stringent emphasis on a risk management approach to identifying and managing psychosocial hazards. Employers are now facing a greater demand to proactively manage the risk of sexual harassment in the workplace and bring a risk management approach to this issue.

Join K&L Gates Workplace Health and Safety partners Alanna Fitzpatrick and Dominic Fleeton as they discuss the reforms and the role safety professionals can play in developing prevention plans in respect of this specific safety risk.

The webinar will discuss:

• Positive duty to “take reasonable and proportionate measures” to eliminate, as far as possible, unlawful sex discrimination, sexual harassment and victimisation at work;
• Prohibition on workplace environments that are hostile on the ground of sex;
• New and expanded claims for sexual harassment, including harassment on the ground of sex, hostile work environments and victimisation;
• New powers of the Australian Human Rights Commission to enforce compliance with the positive duty, including via inquiries and compliance notices;
• The interaction between the various psychosocial hazard Codes of Practice and the sexual harassment duties; and
• The role a risk management framework can play in responding to this risk.

Event Details
Date: Thursday 8th June 
Time: 14:30 - 15:30 AEST 
Location: Zoom. Links to the session will be sent out 2-3 days prior.
Cost: AIHS Member: Complimentary | Non-member: Complimentary
CPD: 5 Points

Your Speakers

Alanna Fitzpatrick, Partner, K&L Gates
Alanna is an experienced workplace health and safety partner. She is a responsive, pragmatic and empathetic lawyer who assists her clients to navigate the serious safety incidents and accidents. She assists clients respond to and engage with regulators undertaking investigations following safety incidents in a manner that is designed to ensure that the risk of reputational damage and personal/corporate prosecution is minimised. 

Alanna is also an experienced front end safety lawyer, providing compliance advice to a range of organisations to understand and discharge their obligations under safety legislation and for officers, developing a suite of material to enable those officers to discharge their duty to exercise due diligence. Alanna delivers engaging and informative presentations on safety related topics include crisis management, due diligence and managing the risk of psychosocial harm.  

She is experienced in dealing with a wide range of employment matters including executive employment issues, performance management, grievances, disciplinary matters, discrimination and termination of employment. Alanna has a particular focus on assisting employers to manage ill and injured employees and restraint of trade matters.

Dominic Fleeton, Partner, K&L Gates 
Dominic helps clients manage safety-related crises. This work goes beyond the provision of strict legal advice and includes managing internal and external stakeholders, ensuring that all relevant regulatory and internal obligations are complied with while always remaining focused on the minimising the client's legal risk exposure.

Dominic is an experienced employment, industrial relations and safety litigator and, in all cases, seeks to identify upfront the client's commercial and other goals and then looks for the most simple and effective options to achieve those goals. Dominic knows how to balance the robust pursuit and defence of claims and the management of clients' reputational outcomes.

Dominic is a strategic industrial relations adviser who focuses on helping clients achieve their end game