“It Was Just Banter”: When Everyday Workplace Behaviour Becomes a Respect at Work Risk

In Australian workplaces, banter is often seen as a bit of harmless fun or a way for colleagues to build relationships. But sometimes, what one person sees as friendly joking can leave someone else feeling uncomfortable or excluded.

It can describe the humour that helps colleagues connect. But it can also become an excuse for a comment, joke or interaction that hasn’t landed well: I didn't mean anything by it. We were just having a laugh.

The difficulty is that describing something as “banter” doesn't necessarily tell us anything about the person's intention. Nor does it tell us how the comment or behaviour was experienced by others.

For Bronwyn Dennis, Manager, Learning Solutions at iHR Australia, that is the more useful place for managers to start.

“We have to be conscious of our impact on others, not necessarily what our intent was.”

In workplaces made up of people from different generations, cultures, industries and life experiences, the same joke can be interpreted very differently. What feels harmless to one person may leave another uncomfortable, embarrassed or unsure whether they are expected to play along.

That does not mean workplaces need to become humourless. It simply means leaders need to look beyond whether someone says they were only joking.

The line is not defined by intention alone

Australian Human Rights Commission guidance makes an important point in relation to workplace sexual harassment: a person does not need to intend to sexually harass someone for the conduct to be unlawful.

Nor should an employer assume conduct was welcome simply because somebody did not object at the time.

This is particularly important in everyday workplace interactions, where the line between harmless humour and inappropriate behaviour isn't always clear. It may begin with sexualised jokes, suggestive comments, nicknames or a meme shared in a Teams chat. While the inappropriate picture or calendar pinned to a wall may have largely disappeared, our digital workplace has created new ways for the same type of material to circulate.

Some behaviour may cross a clear legal line. Other behaviour may fall short of unlawful conduct while still contributing to an environment in which disrespect becomes normalised.

Under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, employers and PCBUs also have a positive duty to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate, as far as possible, sexual harassment, sex-based harassment, sex discrimination, conduct creating a workplace environment that is hostile on the ground of sex, and related victimisation.

For managers, waiting until somebody makes a formal complaint is therefore a poor risk strategy.

Silence does not necessarily mean someone is comfortable

One of the most easily misunderstood features of workplace banter is participation.

Someone laughs. They stay in the group chat. They do not challenge the comment. From the outside, they appear to be joining in.

But workplace relationships are rarely equal.

A junior employee may be reluctant to challenge a senior leader. Someone new to a team may worry that leaving a group chat marks them as an outsider. An employee may laugh at a joke because doing otherwise feels socially or professionally risky.

As Bronwyn observes, people can feel they need to “go along to get along”.

The Australian Human Rights Commission similarly recognises that workplace power imbalances and concerns about victimisation can prevent someone from explicitly objecting to conduct they find unwelcome.

This is why managers need to be careful about using silence, laughter or lack of complaint as evidence that behaviour is acceptable.

The responsibility should not fall on the least powerful person in the room to establish the standard for everyone else.

Managers do not need to turn every poor joke into a formal process

There is another risk here. If managers believe their only choices are to ignore behaviour or commence a formal disciplinary process, many will hesitate to intervene.

Early intervention can be considerably simpler.

If a manager hears something that is beginning to cross a line, setting an expectation in the moment may be enough: That's not how we treat each other here.

Done well, that small intervention performs an important cultural function. It tells the person involved where the boundary sits. It also tells everyone watching that the organisation's standards are real.

Bronwyn describes this as one of the manager's most important responsibilities.

The earlier inappropriate behaviour is addressed, the easier it is to establish expectations before conduct becomes normalised or escalates into something more serious.

Employees also have options when they witness behaviour that causes concern.

In iHR Australia's Respect at Work training, participants explore different forms of bystander intervention. Directly challenging behaviour is one option, but it is not always the safest or most effective one. A bystander might interrupt or redirect a conversation, seek help from a manager or HR, check in with the affected person afterwards, or make an appropriate record and report what they observed.

The right response depends on the circumstances.

That judgement is difficult to develop from a policy alone.

Respectful workplaces need people who can give and receive feedback

For Bronwyn, one of the most important capabilities in a respectful workplace is deceptively simple: people need to become better at giving and receiving feedback.

We often assume other people see the world as we do. If a behaviour would obviously be inappropriate to us, we assume the other person must have known it was inappropriate too. But we can’t always assume that.

Someone may have come from a different workplace, industry or social environment where the behaviour had previously gone unchallenged. Giving feedback does not excuse the behaviour. It gives the person an opportunity to understand its impact and change it.

Receiving that feedback well matters just as much.

A workplace where every piece of behavioural feedback becomes a confrontation will struggle to address issues early. A workplace where people can say, That didn't land well, and the response is curiosity rather than defensiveness has a much better chance of correcting behaviour before it becomes entrenched.

That is one reason practical Respect at Work training needs to go beyond definitions and policies.

As explored in our article, Creating Respectful Workplaces: Why Culture Needs to Be Seen, Not Just Explained, workplace culture is shaped by what people see, experience and observe in everyday interactions.

iHR Australia's Workplace Reality Theatre® uses professional actors to bring recognisable workplace situations into the training room. Participants can see tone, body language, group dynamics and the subtle point at which behaviour begins to make someone uncomfortable. They can discuss where the line sits, what a bystander might do and how a manager could intervene.

Real workplaces do not operate like multiple-choice questions.

The capability organisations need is the judgement to recognise what is happening early and the confidence to respond proportionately.

Building capability to respond before behaviour escalates

iHR Australia's Respect at Work programs help both employees and managers recognise inappropriate workplace behaviour, understand their responsibilities and respond confidently when concerns arise.

Using Workplace Reality Theatre®, participants work through realistic situations involving respectful behaviour, discrimination, bullying, harassment, bystander intervention and manager response.

If your organisation is reviewing its Respect at Work training, iHR Australia can tailor a program to your workforce, operating environment and risk profile.