By Cassandra Kalpaxis*
May is Family Violence Prevention Month
She is educated. Capable. Often high-achieving. She sits across the boardroom table, meets her deadlines, mentors junior staff, and smiles through Monday morning stand-ups. She does not look like a victim, and that, in many ways, is the point.
After 15 years as a family lawyer, I have sat across from hundreds of women who did not recognise their own experience as abuse. Because what they lived through bore little resemblance to what they had been told domestic violence looks like. There were no bruises. No broken bones.
What there was – insidious, calculated, and deeply damaging – was coercive control: a partner who monitored their phone, dismantled their confidence with quiet precision, isolated them from friends and family, and controlled their access to money until fear became their baseline and freedom felt like a distant memory.
This is the reality of domestic and family violence. And it is sitting in your workplace right now.
The numbers demand your attention
One in three women in Australia will experience physical, sexual, or emotional abuse in their lifetime. Statistically, if you employ ten women, three of them have been or are currently in an abusive relationship. If you don’t know about it, it is not because it isn’t happening. It is because your people do not yet feel safe enough to tell you.
Research tells us it takes an average of seven attempts before a survivor successfully leaves an abusive relationship. Not because they want to stay, but because leaving is genuinely, statistically dangerous. The period of leaving is the period of greatest risk. And during that time, the court dates, the safety planning, the housing instability, the sleepless nights, they are still showing up to work. Still trying to hold it all together. Because for many, the workplace is the only place their abuser cannot reach them.
That is the weight your employee may be carrying when she seems distracted, withdrawn, or suddenly unreliable. Before you label her disengaged, consider what it may have taken for her simply to walk through your door that morning.
What the law requires and what it doesn’t say
Since February 2023, all Australian employees, full-time, part-time, and casual, have been entitled to ten days of paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave per year under the National Employment Standards. This entitlement is available from day one of employment, does not accumulate like annual leave, and resets each year. It covers violence, threats, coercion or abuse from a current or former partner, a household member, a close relative, or anyone with whom an employee has a significant personal relationship.
Critically, confidentiality is non-negotiable. Payslips must not reference this leave type. Records must be handled with care, and employers are required to take reasonable steps to protect the employee’s safety. In practice, this means payslips should appear as normal as possible, because an abuser monitoring finances will look.
But here is what the legislation does not, and cannot, do: it cannot make your people feel safe enough to use it. Knowing the entitlement exists is the easy part. Building a workplace where someone in crisis trusts that they will be believed, supported, and not quietly penalised, that is the work.
The cost of reactive leadership
I have sat across from a woman who was dismissed from her job for excessive absenteeism. The absences were court dates. Nobody asked. Nobody opened a door. A loyal, long-term employee lost her income, and with it, her access to housing, at the precise moment she needed stability most. That is the cost of reactive leadership.
When disclosure is forced by circumstance rather than invited by culture, it comes too late, or not at all.
What good leadership actually looks like: four things you can do now
The gap between a compliant workplace and a genuinely safe one is not policy. It is culture. And culture is built in small moments, long before crisis arrives. Here is where to start:
- Talk about it before you need to. Domestic violence support should be visible year-round, not just in May, not just when something happens. Normalise the conversation so it doesn’t feel like an emergency when someone needs to have it.
- Train your leaders to respond well. A manager who reacts with shock, awkwardness, or scepticism can cause lasting harm. Equip your people leaders with the language and confidence to respond with care: “I’ve noticed you seem a bit off lately. I want you to know this is a safe space.” No assumptions. No pressure. Just an open door.
- Know that ten days may not be enough. Court dates get adjourned. Housing falls through. When the paid leave runs out, consider what else you can offer: accrued annual or personal leave, unpaid leave, flexible hours, or remote work. The law sets the floor. You decide the ceiling. Some Australian employers now offer 15, 20, or even 30 days of paid DV leave. The question is not whether you can. It is whether you will.
- Create pathways before they are needed. Confidential disclosure processes, clear referral resources, and visible leadership commitment signal, long before crisis, that your workplace is one where people can bring their whole, complicated, sometimes-in-crisis selves.
Domestic violence does not make an appointment. It will enter your workplace without warning, and when it does, the response of a single manager in a single moment can mean the difference between safety and devastation.
You don’t need to be a counsellor or have all the answers. You need to be the kind of leader who notices, who asks, and who has already built the kind of workplace where the answer to “are you okay?” might result in them getting the support they really need.
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*Cassandra Kalpaxis is the founder and principal lawyer of Kalpaxis Legal, an award-winning family law firm recognised for its compassionate and innovative approach. A bestselling author and creator of Australia’s first divorce retreat, she is a leading voice on dignified separation, women’s financial independence, workplace safety, and domestic violence education. Cassandra has guided families through high-conflict parenting disputes, complex international custody and asset matters, and fertility-related legal issues including IVF, surrogacy, and paternity disputes.
She is also the founder of Not One More Girl, a school-based initiative tackling domestic violence at its roots through education and prevention. Cassandra works with organisations, leaders, and HR teams to help create safer workplaces for those experiencing family and domestic violence, and is speaking at the upcoming Forbes Women’s Soirée in May on this topic.
