No complaints doesn’t mean no risk: Getting Qld’s harassment prevention plan right

Queensland’s sexual harassment prevention plan applies once a risk is identified. Here’s how a small business can find that risk and build a plan its workers will actually use, writes Daniel Holbrook.

Since 1 March 2025, section 55H of the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (Qld) has required a Queensland business that identifies a risk of sexual harassment or sex- or gender-based harassment at work to prepare and implement a written prevention plan. Because the duty depends on a risk being identified, it can look as though a business with no complaints doesn’t need one.

That reasoning doesn’t hold up, because the same regulation requires every business to manage the risk of sexual harassment and to identify reasonably foreseeable hazards, so not looking for the risk is not the same as having none. WorkSafe Queensland’s position is that most jobs involve some risk of sexual harassment. The Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2022 national survey found that one in three workers reported experiencing sexual harassment at work in the previous five years, and that the reporting rate was only 18 per cent. A quiet complaints file tells you very little about what is actually happening.

Here is how I’d approach the plan in a business without an HR team.

Look for the risk properly

In a small business, identifying the risk takes honest conversations and a clear look at how the work is actually done. WorkSafe’s guide for businesses points to talking with workers, checking incident and turnover records, and noticing things like crude language, offensive jokes, or poorly lit work areas. It also warns that a lack of reports doesn’t mean nothing is happening.

The regulation tells you what to consider. Section 55F(1) lists worker characteristics such as age, gender, sex, sexual orientation, and disability. It also lists workplace factors, including a culture that permits inappropriate behaviour and a lack of diversity in decision-making roles. In practice, the questions are simple. Who works alone or at night? Is alcohol part of the work or the social calendar? Are young or casual workers supervised by permanent staff? Do your people deal with customers?

That last question is easy to miss. Harassment by customers, clients, and visitors counts. The commission reports that 40 per cent of retail workers and 34 per cent of hospitality workers experienced workplace sexual harassment in the five years to 2022.

Write down what’s specific to you

A generic policy downloaded from the internet with your logo added isn’t a prevention plan. Section 55H(2) requires the plan to state each identified risk, the control measures for each one, and the matters you considered in choosing them. An off-the-shelf document can’t do that. WorkSafe’s own template is optional, but it’s a sound starting point because it makes you fill in those specifics.

WorkSafe’s worked example of a retail store shows the level of detail that is required: rostering staff in pairs to open and close the store, and taking rubbish to the bins in daylight instead of at night. Those are changes to how the work is organised. Policies and training still matter, but WorkSafe treats training as an administrative control, used for whatever risk remains after other measures.

Don’t let it become a complaints policy

WorkSafe is clear that a prevention plan is about stopping harassment, not responding to it afterwards. The plan still has to set out how a report is made and investigated, that the person reporting can have a representative, how people are told the outcome, and that the issue and dispute resolution processes under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld) (WHS Act) remain available.

In a small business, the person a worker would report to is often the owner. WorkSafe acknowledges that confidentiality is harder to maintain in a small team. I’d always name a second reporting option that doesn’t go through the owner or the worker’s manager, such as another senior person or an external contact. I’d also point workers to the regulators they can contact directly.

Record the consultation

The plan must describe the consultation you carried out. For a team of eight, that might be a staff meeting, a short one-on-one with each worker and an anonymous question box. Write down who was involved, what they raised, and what you changed as a result. If it isn’t recorded, you will struggle to show it happened.

Make sure people know it exists

A plan that sits in a shared drive nobody opens doesn’t meet the duty. You must take reasonable steps to make sure workers know the plan exists and how to access it, and the plan must be readily accessible and understandable. Cover it at induction, put a one-page summary on the noticeboard and talk it through at a team meeting.

Then keep it current. The plan must be reviewed as soon as practicable after a report is made or a health and safety representative or committee asks for a review, and otherwise every three years. Section 55G separately requires you to review your control measures whenever harassment is reported.

The duties to prepare, implement, communicate, and review the plan each carry a maximum penalty of 60 penalty units. Queensland’s psychosocial hazards Code of Practice was amended from 1 September 2026 and now includes guidance on prevention plans. Under section 26A of the WHS Act, a business must follow an approved code or manage the risk to an equivalent or higher standard.

The test I’d apply is simple. If a worker raised a concern tomorrow, would your plan show what you had already done to prevent harassment, and would they know exactly how to report it?

Daniel Holbrook is the founder and director of Brookvale HR Solutions. He holds an MBA and a Certificate IV in Work Health and Safety.

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