Ms Mandy La Combre:

Looking at the most obvious way in which domestic violence affects women's working lives, losing a job is losing a way out, first and foremost. Much research shows that women lose their jobs as a result of suffering domestic violence. In ICTU's research a number of years ago, there was much commentary about how women lost their jobs. In cases where managers are unaware of or unsympathetic to the reasons for persistent lateness, unexplained absence or poor performance, employees can find themselves disciplined or even dismissed. Losing a job and an independent source of income is a disastrous outcome for anybody suffering from domestic violence. We know there is documentation correlating vulnerability and loss of income. People suffering domestic violence are more at risk of this because of the disrupted nature of their employment. If they are consistently losing jobs and in precarious work, the chances of them being able to get away from their abuser or to get themselves out of the situation are lowered since the financial part is so important. The employer supporting them with policies and paid leave is a significant issue. Keeping a job is keeping a path to freedom.

Regarding domestic violence workplace policies and practical supports, I refer to everything that Dr. Duvvury said. I have plenty of examples of practical supports where no negative actions would be taken for poor performance, excessive absence or anything like that. That is in keeping with looking after people. Supports include making flexible working arrangements available and offering temporary or permanent changes in locations in work roles if they are front-facing. A significant matter arising in the ICTU survey was that 80% of people surveyed were abused at work on their phone or email, so another support might involve diverting phone calls and emails. We have salary advances in our workplace policies too. Some are financial institutions, so if there is coercive control because people's partners are financially controlling them, the institutions can set up separate accounts for them. There are different things that some employers can do. We have seen three or four nights in a hotel being paid for by employers. That is in my own policy at work and possibly in the Vodafone policy and supports people who are escaping violent situations, possibly at a minute's notice. It is about ensuring that they never work alone, safety planning and so on. All of this has to be in tandem with the leave.

I know I am a big promoter of workplace policies. I think they are an important part of this. In the absence of good, robust workplace policies where the organisation understands the issue, it is talked about and the stigma is broken, I cannot see people taking up paid leave. I cannot see situations where people will go to human resource managers to ask if it is not spoken about in the workplace, not signposted or not something that other colleagues can talk about. Much research shows that people disclose this to a colleague rather than to a manager or to someone in HR. Everybody in the workplace knows that it is happening. That is why policies are so important.