The role of the workplace in supporting employees who may be using violence
[Matt Pronger: Programs Manager, Australia’s CEO Challenge]
Like with someone who’s experiencing domestic and family violence, someone who may be using violent or abusive behaviours can demonstrate a whole lot of signs and symptoms or not. It depends on what that looks like, very similar kind of list, so withdrawn, distracted, performance dropping, we might see some unique stuff around sexist comments or sexist jokes within the workforce, we might see presenteeism. So, the person’s spending more time at work or volunteering for every trip away to try and get themselves away from the family unit. Sometimes we’ll see someone make some comments about their kids but their partner’s absent. So, they’re really glowing about X, Y and Z or the flip side of this them actually trying to tell you a story about how amazing things are for me so I’m embellishing or creating a very very different picture, so what that looks like in different circumstances. We could still see that emotional trigger or angry or emotional response depending on where they are and what stage they might be at.
[Jacqui Watt: Chief Executive Officer, No to Violence]
Perpetrators don’t self-identify themselves among us, but we know that one in three women have experienced some sort of harassment or abuse over time. So, we know that big employers, for example, will have a fair number of people within their workplaces who will be using family violence as a tactic within their relationship. So how do we even begin to identify them? What we say at No To Violence is that the best thing an employer can do, is to create an environment in which it’s safe for people to say “I think I might be in trouble here, I might need some help” or “There’s things going on at home that are impacting on my sense of safety” and if an employer can hold that and provide employees with that support and security, that then means we begin to identify what might be going on for people and can put people in touch with services to help them.
[Jan Breckenridge: Professor and Head of School of Social Sciences
Co-Convenor of Gendered Violence Research Network
University of NSW, Sydney]
It’s important to recognise that there are some perpetrators who are willing to rehabilitate and are capable of productively rehabilitating. I don’t think all perpetrators are, so the answer is it depends, there’s not one answer. So, in part, a workplace would need to make that decision, I think, in relation to a conversation with HR, perhaps their EAP or perhaps a counsellor if that person, the perpetrator / employee is seeking external help.
[Jacqui Watt: Chief Executive Officer, No to Violence]
The duty of workplace as an employer is, I think, to create a safe environment in which people can disclose if they’re living with fear or living in an unsafe and uncertain situation. Workplaces can actually help an employee get some external support through EAP but they can also perhaps direct staff to services if services are available and if the member of staff is willing to go to services. I think we have to respect where the person is coming from, so if they don’t want intervention, the don’t want intervention so we have to work with that. But at the same time, it’s also about people understanding how they might navigate the system. So, if they’re in a situation where they think they need to leave their partner, we know that that’s the most dangerous point in time in relationships. So, having your employer assist you in navigating that could be hugely beneficial for families and could really enhance community safety.
