Preventing discrimination and harassment

By taking simple steps, employers can prevent discrimination and harassment in the workplace, as well as saving time, money and maintaining a good reputation. Having a safe, diverse and equitable workplace can also improve staff relations and customer satisfaction.

There are six easy steps employers can take to prevent workplace issues:

• Create and maintain clear policies that promote a safe working environment and equality of opportunity for all staff.
• Ensure clear support and promotion of these policies by executive management.
• Provide ongoing training of new and existing staff on the policies.
• Provide fair, transparent, quick, simple and effective internal complaints mechanisms to address any breaches of the policies.
• Appoint a staff member as an Equity Contact Officer to provide confidential and impartial information to staff about the policies and complaint processes.
• Ensure continuous and consistent review and evolution of policies, training and complaints mechanisms.

Equity Contact Officers

The appointment and support of the Equity Contact Officer is an indication of an employer's commitment to take incidents of discrimination and harassment seriously. It also assists management to discharge its responsibilities under the vicarious liability provisions of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991.

Equity Contact Officers (ECOs) provide assistance to staff who are subjected to discrimination and harassment and support management in the prevention and elimination of such behaviour in the workplace.

The objective of having ECOs is to:

• raise staff awareness on harassment issues;
• educate staff on options available;
• facilitate early resolution of incidents of discrimination or harassment;
• provide a safe environment for staff to express concerns in a confidential manner;
• make recommendations to management about ways to prevent further incidents;
• assist in promoting a workplace free from discrimination and harassment.

While the Equity Contact Officer role is not defined in law it can be identified as a reasonable step to manage and prevent unacceptable workplace behaviours.

Find out more about our training for new and existing Equity Contact Officers

Equity Contact Officers can often be referred to as Contact Officers, Discrimination and Harassment Contact Officers, Equity and Diversity Contact Officers or a variety of other titles, depending on the workplace.

A sample role description is included in our Employer Toolkit. Download our Employer Toolkit (PDF File, 1.5 MB)