"Bakers Delight may serve up sexual harassment warnings to customers", 5 August 2022

Shoppers at Bakers Delight stores across the country may soon be served up warnings against sexually harassing staff after a three-year investigation found the chain had breached nation-leading laws designed to prevent workplace discrimination.

The franchise group is considering in-store or social media messaging about appropriate customer behaviour as part of a shake-up of procedures that will also include training for staff and potential franchisees on preventing sexual harassment.

In the first review of its kind, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission checked whether Bakers Delight was adhering to the state’s unique laws that give employers a positive duty to prevent workplace sexual harassment, a stance the federal government has promised to adopt.

It found Bakers Delight did not have a sexual harassment prevention plan or central register to record complaints and had not trained staff on how to prevent sexual harassment.

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Bakers Delight joint chief executive Elise Gillespie said the findings, while relating only to Victoria’s laws, had prompted the company to overhaul its procedures nationwide, and backed consistent legislation across Australia.

“It’s something we take seriously,” Gillespie said. “We’ve got this great opportunity, given the findings of the investigation, so we’ve got that really clear road map, so we can be the leader nationally.”

She said the overhaul would potentially involve messaging in stores or on social media about appropriate behaviour from customers, adding “that’s something we would engage our bakeries on as we work through the process”.

But she said servers would also be trained to avoid risks “rather than plastering the walls with ‘this abuse won’t be tolerated’” messaging.

Gillespie said Bakers Delight had received sexual harassment complaints from staff in the past, but they were isolated incidents and she was confident they had been dealt with appropriately.

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