A junior Nine Entertainment employee was allegedly sexually assaulted by a senior colleague after a Christmas party at work.
The explosive allegations emerged following an independent investigation into the media company’s systemic toxic culture by workplace culture firm Intersection.
The woman and the manager had left the party together and were returning to their home in Sydney when the alleged assault occurred. The Australian reported.
It is understood that the alleged victim did not report the incident to the police or tell his employer at the time or when he left the company.
Neither she nor the senior manager worked in Nine’s news and current affairs department.
The woman gave details of the alleged incident to the Intersection review and also spoke with law firm Ashurst, the publication reported.
The woman also claims that she was subjected to harassment that led her to leave the company in 2022. At that time she received a five-figure payout.
A spokesperson for Nine told the publication it did not comment on individual cases.
A junior Nine Entertainment employee was allegedly sexually assaulted by a senior colleague after a Christmas party at work (file image)
“While not referring to any individual, more generally Nine is committed to investigating all complaints raised by employees to Nine through the channels we make available to our people,” a spokesperson said.
‘We encourage our people to respect the process of any investigation. We strive to provide as much transparency as possible about the processes involved, but we do not and will not comment on individual cases.
‘Confidentiality is essential to ensure a fair and equitable investigation and reinforce confidence in our systems and processes. “Again, generally speaking, it is important to note that we are vigilant and actively look for inappropriate behavior in the workplace, and we empower our leaders to take action if they observe bad behavior, even if no complaints are made.”
The Intersection report found that Nine had ‘a systemic problem of abuse of power and authority; intimidation, discrimination and harassment; and sexual harassment’.
More than 120 past and present employees participated in the review and reported their own experiences of inappropriate workplace behavior within the media and entertainment giant.
Intersection’s investigation found that 57 percent of staff in the media company’s broadcast division had experienced bullying, discrimination or harassment in the past five years, and a third said they had been sexually harassed in the same time period. .
The report said the company’s toxic culture had been enabled by ‘lack of leadership responsibility; power imbalances; gender inequality and lack of diversity; and significant distrust of leaders at all levels of the business.”
It is understood that staff were told that because the review had been carried out by an external company, none of the complaints would result in action being taken against individual perpetrators without a separate internal investigation.
Nine’s board said the report had made 22 recommendations to reset the culture of its business and it had committed to implementing them all.
Recommendations included reviewing and updating the company’s code of conduct, investigating an external complaints management system, establishing a best practices process for hiring, and updating mandatory training on inappropriate workplace behavior.
