BENDIGO businesswoman Larrie Winzar wants violence against women to be discussed in the workplace.

Ms Winzar is the founder of consulting and coaching organisation Follow Your Bliss and thinks it is important colleagues look out for one another.

She said if people suspected their work colleagues were in an abusive relationship, they should question them about it.

"It's noticing if somebody says something inappropriate and saying to them, 'how would you feel if that happened to your sister?'," she said. "It's encouraging the conversation to be heard in our workplaces and community groups so everybody understands there's never a place for violence against women."

Ms Winzar said it was also important people understood that violence wasn't limited to physical abuse, but included financial and emotional abuse as well.

"There's also intimidation and belittling them, restricting their access to family money and preventing them from getting a job," she said.

"These non-physical ones, they're still violent."

Ms Winzar said people often had to read between the lines of what their colleagues said about their home lives, to pick up on hints that they may be being abused.

"Reading between the lines of what someone is saying could indicate that they need some support," she said.

"If you hear someone saying something in the workforce, speak up."

“When we see behaviours in our community that aren’t right that could be the tip of the iceberg of what’s happening at home.”

She said violence prevention was everybody's business and everybody had a role to play in tackling it.

She said family violence had a 'ripple effect' - with people other than the victim being negatively impacted by perpetrators' bullying.