On International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women 2025, we launched this gender and intersectional-transformative risk assessment method that recognises that violence and harassment do not affect all workers equally; women, gender-diverse workers, and other groups in vulnerable situations often experience disproportionate exposure to both overt and subtle forms of harm, including sexual harassment, unequal task allocation, career barriers, pay gaps, and work-related stress.

By systematically identifying, analysing, mitigating, and transforming these risks, the method ensures that preventive and protective measures actively challenge structural inequalities, organisational culture, failures in the organisation of the work processes, and intersectional vulnerabilities. 

This method supports the creation of safe, inclusive, and equitable workplaces, aligning with C190’s objectives to protect workers from all forms of violence and harassment while promoting dignity, equality, and fair treatment across all genders and intersectional diversities, positioning unions as drivers of change.

This initiative will run for one year, during which PSI unions and WOC members will apply and evaluate the method across diverse public service workplaces.
A full assessment of progress, including consolidated lessons learned, will be presented on 25 November 2026, highlighting achievements, challenges, and next steps for strengthening the implementation of C190.

Introduction

Unions play a critical role as drivers of change in addressing gender- and intersectional-based violence and harassment in the workplace. By leveraging their collective voice and negotiating power, unions can influence organisational policies, promote safe and inclusive work environments, and ensure that all workers—regardless of gender or other intersectional characteristics—are protected from harm. This method for assessing workplace risks of violence and harassment aims to strengthen unions’ capacity to act in a transformative dimension and to challenge systemic inequalities and power imbalances. Conducting and presenting a thorough risk assessment is a key step in this process, providing evidence-based insights that guide interventions, inform the employer, and support measures through collective bargaining and social dialogue mechanisms

Objectives

The method aims to:

• Identify risks of violence, harassment, and psychosocial stressors at work in public services

• Recognise gendered patterns of risk (e.g. sexual harassment, unequal task allocation, career barriers, unpaid care burdens).

• Recommend preventive, mitigation, and transformative measures.

• Promote gender-transformative safe, inclusive, and equitable work environments through social dialogue and collective bargaining agreements

Core Components

The process consists of seven main steps.

Step 1: Contextual Analysis

Goal: Understand the workplace environment, organisational culture, and the union’s power to drive change

Actions:

• Characterise the public services sector in which the institution or enterprise operates: Direct Contact Services (people-facing services where staff interact directly with the public or service users) or Indirect Contact Services (behind-the-scenes or infrastructure services that support the delivery of public services but do not usually have direct contact with users).

• Review organisational guidelines for tackling violence and harassment: policies, collective bargaining agreements, whistleblower protections, among others

• Evaluate the organisation of work: including intensity, working hours, clarity of roles and functions, schedules, supervision lines

• Analyse workforce demographics: including gender, age, role, contract type, shift patterns, and other intersectional diversities

• Assess cultural factors: norms regarding reporting violence and harassment, gender roles, and inclusiveness.

• Identify external influences: societal gender norms, commuting risks, community safety.

• Evaluate the union’s level of influence to drive change and protect workers’ rights in the workplace

Gender Dimension Consideration:

• Are women, gender-diverse, and intersectional diverse workers concentrated in certain roles (occupational segregation) within the specific public services sector under analysis?

• Are some roles considered ‘high risk’ for violence and harassment in this sector?

What percentage of union members are women, both at the grassroots level and in leadership positions?

Step 2: Hazard Identification

“Hazard can be anything that has the potential to cause or contribute to violence and harassment”.  ILO. Preventing and addressing violence and harassment in the world of work through occupational safety and health measures. 2024.

Goal: Identify potential psychosocial, gender, and intersectional-specific hazards.

“Psychosocial hazards are interactions between and among the work environment, job content, organizational conditions, and workers’ capacities, needs, culture, and personal extra-job considerations that may, through perceptions and experience, influence health, work performance and job satisfaction”. ILO.  Idem.

Hazard Types:

• Work overload or underload

• Lack of autonomy or decision-making power to perform work

• Job insecurity or contract instability

• Hierarchical structures and a social division of labour that may normalise bullying, harassment, intimidation, or violence

• Male-dominated, female-dominated sectors or occupations

• Work–life conflict (e.g. unpaid care work)

• Higher exposure to public-facing stressors (e.g., violence and harassment from citizens, stressful decision-making under public scrutiny).

• Prevalence of frontline staff who face physical and emotional exposure to clients or patients, sometimes in crises.

• Staff retention and wellbeing concerns (burnout, high turnover).

• Compliance with health and safety regulations and professional standards.

Gender-Specific Hazards

• Sexual harassment or coercion

• Unequal access to promotions, pay, or training

• Gendered allocation of tasks: emotional labour burden or invisible’ care work

• Gendered impacts on career progression and exposure to discriminatory language or practices

Intersectional hazards, which involve multiple social identities or factors, combine to increase a person’s vulnerability:

• Denial of reasonable adjustments, mocking, or isolation from team activities for workers with disabilities

• Being denied promotions, targeted jokes, or culturally insensitive policies for migrant, indigenous, and racialised workers

• Unwelcome sexual comments, discriminatory treatment, exclusion from decision-making for gender and sexual diverse workers

• Misgendering and policies that fail to recognise workers with diverse gender identities

Step 3: Risks: Analysis

Goal: Assess the probability, severity, and impact of each identified hazard to determine the risk

*Each item can be rated as low, medium, or high.

[1] Risk describes the likelihood and severity of violence and harassment occurring as a result of exposure to a hazard. ILO. Idem.

Step 4: Risk Prioritisation

Goal: Determine which risks require immediate attention.

Prioritisation Criteria:

• High severity or probability

• Disproportionate gendered and intersectional impact

• Compliance requirements with ILO Convention 190.

• Organisational and quality impacts in public services.

Step 5: Risk Elimination / Mitigation / Control Measures

Goal: Define actions to eliminate, reduce, or manage risks.

Order of Controls:

• Elimination – remove the hazard (e.g. enforce zero tolerance).

• Redesign – change organisation of work and processes to reduce exposure (e.g. rotate high-risk tasks).

• Organisational Controls – adjust the environment (e.g. reduce patient aggression by improving security, clear visitor policies, de-escalation protocols, safe office layouts, and flexible schedules. Adequate staffing ratios to reduce burnout. Rotational shifts and regular breaks.)

• Administrative Controls – update policies, procedures, and training.

• Support Measures – assistance for affected workers

Gender and Intersectional Dimension Consideration:

Address structural inequalities, not just individual behaviours or conduct

Step 6: Intervention Plan

Goal: To use the findings of the gender and intersectional risk assessment to protect workers, inform the employer, and present actionable and transformative proposals in collective bargaining agreements or social dialogue mechanisms

Key actions:

Review and Analyse the Risk Assessment

• Examine hazards and risks

• Identify gendered and intersectional vulnerabilities in the workforce.

• Validate the risks prioritisation

• Elaborate recommendations

• Document findings and prioritise areas of concern.

Inform the Employer

• Share the risk assessment results formally with management.

• Highlight critical risks andc recommend preventive measures.

• Keep written records of communications and responses.

Develop Measures for Collective Bargaining and Social Dialogue

• Translate risk assessment findings into actionable proposals.

• Ensure measures address gender and intersectional considerations.

• Document proposals and any agreements reached

Step 7: Monitoring and Review

Goal: Ensure continuous improvement and effectiveness of risk controls, collective bargaining, and social dialogue agreements.

Key Actions:

• Track incidents, complaints, absenteeism, and turnover by gender and intersectionality

• Conduct follow-up surveys on workplace climate.

• Review the effectiveness of policies, CBA clauses, social dialogue agreements, and controls.

• Adjust strategies based on feedback and changing conditions.

• Update the assessment regularly.

Gender Dimension Consideration:

• Assess whether women and groups in vulnerable situations feel safe and included.

• Evaluate reductions in gender and intersectional inequalities and improvements in workplace culture and organisation of work

Methodology:

The proposed methodology outlines the process for implementing the workplace risk assessment on gender- and intersectional-based violence and harassment. It provides a structured, transparent, and participatory approach, emphasising the active engagement of workers through their participation, documentation of findings, and the translation of assessment results into concrete actions, thereby strengthening the role of unions

Key Aspects

• Worker Engagement: Gather input from workers through surveys, focus groups, or interviews to capture diverse experiences and perspectives.

• Data Documentation: Systematically record findings, incidents, and patterns to ensure transparency and facilitate follow-up.

• Action Planning: Develop and implement preventive and mitigative measures based on the assessment, integrating union-led initiatives and recommendations.

Process

• Designate a team of union representatives (including women and workers from intersectional diverse groups) responsible for implementing the risk assessment, with clearly defined roles, tasks, and timelines.

• Develop a time-bound plan for collecting and completing the required information for each of the first five steps of the process.

• Analyse the information and prepare the report, ensuring findings reflect gender and intersectional dimensions.

• Present the findings to union leadership, including collective bargaining teams, and formulate recommendations.

• Prepare a presentation for the employer and propose the inclusion of measures within collective bargaining or social dialogue processes.