Bosses must do more to help domestic violence victims

If an Australian woman gets cancer she can rightly expect the full support of her employer, including paid leave. So why are we lagging so desperately for victims of domestic violence, asks Kylie Lang.

If a woman has breast cancer, an ethical employer will offer extended leave, flexible hours, and understand if her performance temporarily falls short due to the effects of an uninvited illness.

The business will be smart enough to also realise retaining a valued employee makes economic sense, and a person’s career need not be a casualty of circumstances appropriate care might otherwise remedy.

 

 

Hannah Clarke’s mum joins with Beyond DV to give victim’s of domestic violence a voice

 

 

New shelters for QLD women and children escaping DV

 

 

 

 

 

Domestic violence should be no different.

Support should be paramount and precise, especially as statistics show one in six female employees experiences it.

The risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer before age 85 is one in eight.

Not that either is something anybody would choose.

Yet the stigma around physical, emotional, financial and other abuse remains, despite the best efforts of support agencies and government policies.

Many employers have no clue how to have those important conversations or put in place meaningful assistance that goes beyond a nominal DV policy or the five days’ unpaid DV leave mandated under 2018 Fair Work legislation.

 

Domestic violence survivor Joanna Mason

 

Queensland public servants are afforded 10 days’ paid DV leave, something also provided by corporate guns including Qantas, Ikea, NAB, Woolworths and Telstra.

But even this is not enough.

It doesn’t change the culture that enables domestic violence to be diminished instead of openly acknowledged for the social sickness it is.

Joanna Mason is a Brisbane woman whose established career “fell off a cliff” when she revealed the horrors she was enduring at home.

Ms Mason, twice hospitalised for injuries inflicted by her then partner, says she was “performance managed” out of her marketing director job despite previously being “the golden girl” and managing up to 17 staff.

Her failings? Telling her management and the HR department about the abuse, and admitting it was making it hard for her to focus at work (for which she compensated by taking copious notes).

“What happened in my workplace was almost as bad as what happened at home – my life imploded,” says Ms Mason, a mother of a young child.

Ms Mason, now 48, felt she had no choice but to resign after her employer “upped the ante” on workplace demands, told her off for carrying a notebook, and tried to reduce her two days’ approved leave (to move out of her unsafe home) to just one.

“I look back at that woman I was, and my heart breaks for her,” she says.

“In hindsight, I’d have asked for flexible work arrangements, job security so I could get a mortgage, and time out to be with my support worker or attend court, but they flat out told me they couldn’t support me.”

 

 

The next two years were grim.

“I took a job that paid one-third of what I was earning, and had to buy food from a church charity and take in boarders to help bridge the gap in my wage,” she says.

But out of adversity came a new venture.

Ms Mason, an accredited life coach and Brisbane Domestic Violence Service ambassador, joined forces with top recruiter David Wilson to found WorkHaven, a service to educate and upskill employers and staff.

“There is no silver bullet to fix domestic violence because it’s so complex and every workplace is different, however, understanding and connection is essential in all of them; people should never feel judged or victim-blamed,” she says.

“When you can have really open conversations, it takes away the power of the perpetrator and exposes their dirty little secret; it’s the stigma that gives them power.”

While men experience domestic violence as well, statistics confirm women suffer the most, accounting for three-quarters of reported cases.

Research shows DV is the leading contributor to death, disability and ill-health among women aged 15 to 44, and violence against women costs the national economy $22 billion per year, including in lost productivity, absenteeism and replacing employees who’ve left.

Ms Mason’s experience aside, these are compelling reasons for employers to up their game.

What’s more, it’s the decent thing to do.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail