Workplace and the cycle of Domestic and Family Violence
[Matt Pronger: Programs Manager, Australia’s CEO Challenge]
What we may see in a workplace setting in that cycle of violence, you might see some of those charming or romantic gestures or the buy backs or the flowers or the chocolates. We might see absenteeism. We might see presenteeism where someone’s actually working longer hours because they’re scared of going home. Or the flip side of that, a person is staying longer at work because they don’t want to go back into that conflict. We might see someone emotional or irrational going up and down in different kind of cycles, we might see someone withdrawing from social interactions – they don’t want to come and have lunch with people or they don’t want to do those kinds of things or they’re scared of doing them. Someone being dropped off or picked up from work. An increased rate of personal phone calls. a Always texting, always making phone calls, a whole lot of different things we can recognise there. We might see physical injury. So, there are a range of behaviours we can pick up. Every situation is different. Every relationship and in terms of what that looks like for individuals can be very very different.
[Jan Breckenridge: Professor and Head of School of Social Sciences
Co-Convenor of Gendered Violence Research Network
University of NSW, Sydney]
It isn’t always possible to tell or to even assess when someone’s experiencing domestic and family violence when you’re an employer. It may well be that you have some indications that someone’s not coping while at work and it could be that they’re coming in late leaving early. A worker who was always really competent and professional and proficient suddenly there’s a decrease in their capacity to do their job to the same level. It could be that you’ve heard from different colleagues that they think something might not be ok at home. But for some people who experience domestic and family violence, work is an absolute haven, it doesn’t affect work and, in fact, they might come in early and leave late which is about their safety, or it could be just it’s the one place they feel competent, confident and able to function really well.
[Matt Pronger: Programs Manager, Australia’s CEO Challenge]
Some people never leave these relationships and we know in some circumstances, unfortunately every week, the worst case has happened. So thinking about what this actually looks like and how as an organisation we can support those people. Quite often we see people go around this cycle a number of different times and on average they reckon the person is trying to exit this relationship seven to nine times and getting drawn back in and often family and friends start cutting them off at this point in time. “If you going to go back to this person, I don’t want anything to do with you.” “You’ve made your bed; you can lie in it.” As a workforce we may be the last port of call for this person and if we start behaving that same way, if they check in with us Monday and say “I’m concerned” and we start throwing support to them and Friday they come around and say “No no don’t worry about it, let it go” and then we start getting frustrated with this person, then we’ve actually disempowered them even further and we’ve become part of the problem. So, how we can actually support them in the long term. It might take four or five of six or more times for this person to go around that cycle and that we are being level and supportive and safe there. We’re not judging them; we’re actually making sure we were ready to go when they are and we’re also not pushing them to leave when they’re not ready because we could actually increase their risk by doing so. And we know that one of the most dangerous times is when someone chooses to leave around separation.