Managing Bullying & Harassment

What is bullying & harassment?

Bullying and harassment is behaviour that makes someone feel intimidated or offended.

Harassment is unlawful under the Equality Act 2010.

Why is managing bullying & harassment important?

Workplace bullying and harassment can have a serious impact on the wellbeing of the victim, often manifesting as issues such as excessive absence or poor performance.

Whilst the perpetrator of harassment, discrimination, or victimisation is fully responsible for their own actions, an employer can also be legally deemed to have ‘vicarious liability’ for simply allowing the situation to occur.

Importantly, widespread repeated occurrence of these behaviours, particularly amongst managers or other senior staff, could be a sign of a wider toxic company culture, rather than simply the case of a single problematic individual.

By law, employers must do everything they reasonably can to protect staff from such treatment.

Resignation of the victim resulting from a failure of this ‘duty of care’ could lead to them making a claim of constructive dismissal.

In addition to directly benefiting employees, the provision of such support offers an excellent return-on-investment (ROI) in terms of mitigating against a number of significant business risks:

How can we help you manage bullying & harassment?

We can help you put the necessary policies and procedures in place to ensure that you have a healthy and positive company culture, with a clear expectation of zero-tolerance for bullying, harassment, discrimination, and victimisation.

If any issue does happen to arise in this area, we can help you take the appropriate action to both look after the wellbeing of the victim, as well as ensure behaviour change by the perpetrator.

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