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Thursday, 27 January 2011 11:25 |
 To help you raise awareness of the potentially damaging patterns of behaviour caused by office banter, here are some of our suggestions on how to avoid costly claims:
Raise awareness
- Reading through lengthy bullying and harassment policies is not something most employees will do, so make yours well communicated and to the point!
- Employers who become liable for acts of harassment could consider passing on the liability to the worker who has acted inappropriately, do they know that?
Show that you care
- Interestingly, a percentage of employees that leave a business do so because they have witnessed an act of bullying or harassment and have seen nothing done about it.
- By recognising your duty of care for your employees, it could help retain those top performers you can’t afford to lose.
- Provide access for workers to someone who they can speak to in confidence about any issues they may have. This doesn’t have to be HR especially if you’re a one man band but possibly a trained volunteer.
Formalities
- As we’re sure you’re all aware, where an informal approach has failed or if it is the worker’s preference, a formal procedure should be conducted.
We suggest implementing a clear formal policy that sets out how you will deal with unacceptable behaviour.
- In order to help head off any Tribunal claims, formal allegations need to be investigated and any allegations of harassment, bullying or any intimidating behaviour that is upheld should be treated as a disciplinary offence.
If you would like any further guidance on how to deal with any of the topics raised in these top tips please do not hesitate to get in touch. |
