International momentum on workplace responses to intimate partner violence (IPV)

Last year, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) published a policy paper “Supports (th)at work: Policy tools to support workplace action on intimate partner violence” highlighting steps that employers and governments, particularly in OECD countries, are taking to improve workplace responses to intimate partner violence. The Lowy Institute also published a related article last year, “Domestic violence in the workplace: When the laws don’t work,” based on insights from 2025 research assessing the effectiveness of domestic violence leave laws in different countries and jurisdictions.  

The OECD paper discusses four common employer approaches to respond to domestic violence in the workplace: 

• development of organisational policies that set out a robust approach;  

• building capacity in the workforce by upskilling workers and establishing supportive processes to respond to domestic violence;  

• connecting affected employees with appropriate supports through direct provision or referral to community services; and  

• establishing workplace flexibility measures that enable employees to deal with the impacts of the abuse while maintaining employment. 

The paper also discusses: 

• The importance of workplace safety planning “based on the individual needs and circumstances of workers experiencing abuse, and developed jointly with the victim-survivor, recognizing…victim-survivors are the experts in managing their own safety, and are doing so on a daily basis,” and 

• Concerns about trust and privacy for employees who worry that disclosing family violence may lead to stigma and discrimination.

All of these points align with DVFREE recommendations which, for explain the importance of Workplace Safety and Wellbeing Planning being led by affected employees, the need to state a commitment to confidentiality for employees’ family violence situations while clarifying exceptions may be made when there is a serious threat to someone’s safety, and the importance of highlighting employees’ legal right to not be discriminated against on the basis of being affected by family violence. 

The OECD paper states that (limited) evidence points to beneficial impacts of domestic violence leave schemes, “while signalling a need for better awareness to promote uptake.” The Lowy Institute research agrees on this point, “In countries that offer paid DV leave, employees and employers often don’t know about the entitlement,” and goes on to state that “DV leave needs to be part of broader workplace and societal response to gender inequality, including connecting leave to other systems of support, educating employers about their obligations, and tacking structural causes of DV and gender inequality.” 

Both papers mention ILO C190 (International Labour Organisation’s Convention 190) as the first international treaty to recognise domestic violence as a workplace problem requiring a workplace response. (New Zealand has not yet ratified this convention.) The OECD paper also discusses two European conventions supporting effective workplace responses to family violence.

The OECD paper also recognises that “Employers also have an important role to play in addressing perpetration of violence, and addressing violence when it spills over into the workplace. Workplaces play an important role in ensuring safety in the workplace, and there is significant opportunity for employers to contribute to prevention by addressing the social and cultural norms that enable abuse to take place, and by connecting perpetrators to programmes and supports that could help to stop further violence.” We could not agree more, and we have updated and improved guidance for employers on this topic in the new version of the DVFREE Guidelines.

Finally, the OECD paper references a 2000 report by Dentons Lawyers and Thomson Reuters that highlights Canada’s occupational health and safety legislation requiring employers to prevent domestic violence in the workplace by taking every reasonable precaution to protect workers if they are aware, or ought to be aware of domestic violence.

While New Zealand’s legal framework does not provide this clarity around employers’ obligations to protect workers from domestic violence at work, there is some official guidance about this being an employer obligation within the Initial Briefing to the Justice and Electoral Committee on the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. This briefing stated that the Act “provides protection at work from the effects of domestic violence, where appropriate, under the PCBU’s primary duty of care to effectively manage work health and safety risks… The existing definition of hazard is non-exclusive, acting only to clarify that hazard includes a person’s behaviour where it has the potential to cause death, injury, or illness (whether or not that behaviour results from physical or mental fatigue, drugs, alcohol, traumatic shock or another temporary condition that affects a person’s behaviour. This means that the duties framework under HSWA is already sufficiently broad to capture health and safety concerns at work which stem from the effects of domestic violence.”

Many employers, however, will want to do the right thing to protect their staff from family violence during work, if they are aware of any danger. DVFREE provides a user-friendly Workplace Safety & Wellbeing Planning Tool for employers, with a number of suggested options to offer to at-risk employees and links to more information where useful.

Lastly, the OECD paper recognizes that “some employers are also moving to address domestic violence in their supply chains and customer base.” Indeed, DVFREE has delivered our Customer Response Champion training to a number of employers over the last several years, and we plan to broaden this offering with frontline staff customer response modules to be launched later this year as part of a Customer Response package.