Creating safer and more respectful workplaces in Australia is no longer just about responding when things go wrong. With the introduction of the Positive Duty under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 and the strengthened obligations to manage psychosocial hazards under Work Health and Safety law, the expectation is clear: organisations must act proactively to prevent harm before it occurs.
This is where knowledge becomes critical. Not surface-level awareness or policies sitting on a shelf, but practical understanding, especially among leaders, of what respectful behaviour looks like, how to respond when it isn’t upheld, and why this matters for both people and performance.
This article is part of our Conduct & Culture series, created in collaboration with Intersection, where we explore practical strategies to help organisations meet the Positive Duty under the Sex Discrimination Act. This article focuses on Standard 3: Knowledge.
What Respect@Work Revealed – And Why Training Matters
The Respect@Work National Inquiry was a turning point because it didn’t just catalogue statistics, it revealed how unprepared many workplaces remain for the realities of misconduct. The findings were sobering with several relevant points including:
- Sexual harassment is widespread, under-reported, and often mishandled.
- Employees frequently don’t know what behaviours cross legal lines, how to raise concerns, what support is available, or how leadership will respond.
- At the same time, leaders are left without the tools they need. When problematic behaviour surfaces, responses are inconsistent or delayed – not because people are indifferent, but because they lack the confidence, the language, or even the basic processes to intervene.
The Inquiry highlighted:
- That workers need to be able to recognise the early signs of misconduct or disrespect, rather than waiting until harm has escalated.
- Leaders need safe, structured ways to intervene when behaviour is dubious but not yet reported. They need clarity on their obligations under the law, beyond the vague idea of “don’t do anything bad”; and
- Practical guidance on how to handle disclosures when they arrive, often unexpectedly and in emotionally charged circumstances.
Bridging these gaps is exactly where training becomes essential. Not generic modules, but targeted, practical education that builds real capability. Developing leaders equipped to respond with empathy and fairness, employees confident that they can speak up and be heard, and workplaces where knowledge is not abstract but lived, every day.
When that happens, prevention becomes possible and cultures begin to shift from reactive compliance to proactive respect.
Standard 3: Knowledge as Obligation and Opportunity
he Respect@Work reforms introduced Standard 3: Knowledge, which places knowledge at the heart of compliance with the positive duty. The requirement is simple but powerful:
Everyone in the organisation must understand their rights and responsibilities, and how to identify, prevent, and respond to unlawful conduct.
This makes training more than a compliance exercise. It is about creating capability:
- Employees who can recognise inappropriate behaviour when it occurs.
- Leaders who know how to respond — not just enforce rules, but lead with fairness and empathy.
- A culture where people trust the system enough to speak up, and know what to expect when they do.
Knowledge in this sense isn’t passive. It isn’t a policy on a shelf or a course completed once a year. It is active, practical, and embedded – shaping decisions and behaviour at every level of the organisation.
Why Leadership Gets Put in the Spotlight
People Leaders play a pivotal role because culture lives and dies in day-to-day interactions. Supervisors, managers and executives they set the tone for what is tolerated and what isn’t. They model responses, either stepping in early to prevent harm or allowing silence to take hold.
Yet many leaders feel underprepared. They struggle with the grey areas: how to intervene when behaviour is dubious but not yet reported, how to manage sensitive conversations with empathy, or how to balance care for individuals with compliance obligations. Without training and support, hesitation takes over, and opportunities for prevention are lost.
When leaders are confident and capable, the opposite happens. They act early, respond consistently, and create environments where people feel safer to raise concerns.
From Knowledge to Capability: Designing Programs That Change Behaviour
If knowledge is the foundation, then program design is what determines whether it takes hold. Training that is generic or one-off rarely changes behaviour. To have impact, programs must be engaging, reinforced, and directly connected to the lived realities of work.
Research into leadership development and behaviour change is consistent on this point: people don’t change because they’ve been told to. They change when the conditions make new behaviours easier, safer, and more rewarding. That means designing programs that are not just about awareness but about practice and guidance… giving people the chance to rehearse conversations, test their judgment in realistic scenarios, and learn from feedback.
Best practice programs feel lived, not theoretical. They use real-world examples and role plays. They are repeated and reinforced over time, not confined to onboarding. They are tailored to roles and risks, acknowledging that what a frontline worker needs differs from what a CEO requires. And they are accessible, designed with different literacy levels, cultural contexts, and learning styles in mind.
But even the best training has limits. The hardest time to act differently is when stress is high or situations are ambiguous – precisely the moments when employees hesitate or leaders stumble. That is why systems and tools matter. A smart platform like Rely can provide guidance at the point of need: helping leaders respond to disclosures, documenting incidents clearly, or prompting intervention when behaviour feels off but hasn’t yet been reported. Training builds the foundation; platforms make it usable in the moment.
We’ve seen this lesson in the evolution of unconscious bias training. As Harvard Business Review has shown, the most effective programs don’t just raise awareness; they integrate practice, reinforcement, and accountability. Knowledge may start in a workshop, but it only becomes habit when supported by structures that embed it into everyday decisions. Respect@Work is asking organisations to make this shift. Not simply “deliver training,” but build capability.
When training and platforms work together, organisations don’t just meet the standard. They create the conditions where people know what to do, feel safe doing it, and trust that their leaders will act. That is how knowledge becomes culture.
From Compliance to Culture
The law provides the structure and the consequences. But culture gives meaning. Without culture, rules are minimum standards to avoid liability; with culture, they become shared commitments people uphold every day.
The challenge now is not whether organisations will comply with Standard 3, but whether they will go further – turning compliance into capability, and knowledge into culture. When they do, workplaces shift:
- From reacting to incidents, to preventing harm.
- From fear of liability, to trust, safety, and inclusion.
- From minimum compliance, to leadership and care.
Laws will continue to evolve. Expectations will rise. But the core truth remains: lasting change depends on knowledge that is shared, internalised, and acted upon. Training is not simply a requirement to satisfy regulation; it is how organisations create the conditions for people to thrive.
