Inclusive teams see 3x lower sexual harassment rates, 3,000-worker survey

For HR and people leaders, Diversity Council Australia's latest research closes a long-standing evidence gap: it proves inclusion is a harassment-prevention mechanism, not a separate DEI initiative. Workers in inclusive teams report sexual harassment at one-third the rate of their peers, and inclusive managers more than halve the risk. That reframes inclusion budgets and manager training as compliance and risk-management spending with a quantifiable return.

The key development is a first-of-its-kind quantification: Diversity Council Australia's Power of Inclusion report, released on Wednesday 23 September 2026, establishes a measurable link between workplace inclusion and sexual harassment. Drawing on DCA's biennial survey of 3,000 Australian workers, the research found that employees in inclusive teams were three times less likely to have experienced sexual harassment in the preceding 12 months than their counterparts in non-inclusive teams. Head of research Rose D'Almada-Remedios told AAP that while the connection had long been assumed anecdotally, it had never before been quantified, making this the central analytical contribution of the study.

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The key development is a first-of-its-kind quantification: Diversity Council Australia's Power of Inclusion report, released on Wednesday 23 September 2026, establishes a measurable link between workplace inclusion and sexual harassment.

The headline numbers are stark. Forty-five per cent of workers in non-inclusive teams reported experiencing sexual harassment at work, compared with 25 per cent in inclusive teams — a 20-percentage-point gap. Across the full sample, almost one in five workers said they had experienced sexual harassment, a finding the council framed against the uncomfortable reality that such conduct has been illegal in Australian workplaces for more than four decades. The report also isolated the influence of leadership: workers with inclusive managers were more than two times less likely to report harassment, underscoring that immediate supervisor behaviour is a critical variable independent of broader team composition.

The report goes further by mapping the risk profile of workplaces where harassment is most likely to occur. High-risk environments were those where most workers, supervisors or managers were men; where the workforce lacked diversity; where disrespectful behaviour was accepted; and where no policy set out expected standards of behaviour. The findings connect exclusion directly to harm: employees who experienced discrimination were six times more likely to also experience sexual harassment, while workers who were incorrectly stereotyped on the basis of age, gender, race, culture, religion, disability or sexual orientation were more than five times more likely to be harassed. These multipliers position discrimination and stereotyping as leading indicators of harassment risk rather than separate DEI problems.

For Australian employers the timing is significant. Sexual harassment has been unlawful since the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, but the Respect@Work reforms subsequently imposed a positive duty on employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to prevent harassment, shifting the onus from reactive complaint-handling to proactive prevention. The Power of Inclusion findings supply the evidence base that had been missing: they let HR leaders argue that inclusion is not a discretionary culture programme but a measurable risk-control with a defensible return. The report's blueprint — building teams where workers feel respected, valued and connected, and able to contribute and progress — translates directly into prevention strategy.