Will your Christmas function by Psychosocially safe this year?

Christmas is a great time of year but unfortunately, work functions can be fertile ground for incidents that lead to not only WHS claims but also: sexual harassment, sex based harassment, hostile work environment, sex discrimination, victimisation (collectively the Respect@Work obligations), plus bullying, adverse action, unfair dismissal, and privacy claims as well.

With the introduction of the new positive duty for the Respect@Work obligations, employers now have multiple proactive and preventative obligations to ensure that Christmas functions are safe for their employees and others who attend (eg clients, customers, food and beverage staff etc).

Our thoughts  

No one wants to be the ‘fun police’ but contemporary community and legal expectations have changed and employers need to adapt accordingly to a ‘higher bar’.

Christmas functions are nearly always found by courts and tribunals to be events where employees are considered ‘at work’, even if the function takes place after hours and at a separate location. And further the ‘line’ between the ‘official function’ and the ‘after party’ is a blurry one where it is more likely to be found to have some connection with the workplace than not.

Similarly, managers might need to adjust their own expectations and behaviours given the likelihood that courts and tribunals will generally hold them to higher levels of account and responsibility.

Action Items

• Consult within your management team and workforce and agree to the parameters of what type of function you can safely manage – this may involve reviewing previous functions, assessing case studies of other organisations (good and bad) and taking advice from venue providers etc;
• Set a clear ‘tone’ for reflecting what the management expectation is – Your workplace culture shouldn’t take a ‘break’ during the Christmas holidays. Our retainer clients can access and tailor our recommended template letter to employees reminding them of their obligations at your Christmas function;
• Conduct a risk assessment – apply appropriate control measures eg external venue, security, transport vouchers, non-alcoholic options, foods, time limits, RSA, under 18 and new employee options, diversity and inclusion issues, photography etc;
• Designate roles for your management team and reinforce the expectation in terms of ‘modelling’ safe behaviour – eg designated ‘non-drinkers’ for supervison, coordinating transport, photography, RSA, contact officer support, clean up, complaints and incident management, deb-brief for next year etc;
• Review policies and procedures to ensure contemporary compliance – Workplace Behaviour, Code of Conduct, Alcohol and Drugs, Grievance Procedures etc;
• Conduct toolbox meetings or similar to remind employees that workplace functions like the Christmas function still involve the same standard of appropriate workplace behaviour.

Edge Legal

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