Do you have an employee who is bullying, coercive or subversive and is causing distress to your other employees? Do you have systematic bullying and harassment within particular sectors in your workplace?
What Does Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace Look Like?
The TUC state that nearly a third of people (29%) have been bullied at work and of those, nearly half (46%) of people say that it has an adverse impact on their performance at work.
But that isn’t the whole story.
These numbers could in truth be much higher, but if there are no HR procedures in place to report bullying and deal with it, there could be people suffering alone, negatively impacting both their performance and your organisation’s working environment.
Case Study
Here is a recent case study, to show in greater detail one of the many ways that bullying and harassment in the workplace can happen and what your course of action should be:
Upon returning in the New Year, following a Christmas festive party, our clients based in Worcester were aware that a potential indecent assault had been made on a female employee and two male employees had been fighting and one assaulted another as a result of the allegation of indecent assault.
Whilst a large number of people had been present at the event, large amounts of alcohol consumed by many attendees and there were conflicting accounts of what had occurred, the clients decided there was a requirement to conduct a proper professional investigation in an impartial manner and therefore instructed the services of Expert Investigations.
Interview teams (that being two former Police Detectives from Expert Investigations liaised with the client and conducted detailed interviews with all relevant parties both witnesses and suspects.
The location of the alleged assaults were visited and further supporting evidence was located in the premises such as CCTV footage and also with the event venue staff at the premises.
This allowed a full report to be put together confirming and disproving the relevant allegations and this information was handed to the HR department who then progressed to the discipline stage to deal with all parties concerned.
In consultation with the victims they themselves decided to make no formal complaint to the Police.
It’s Time to Act
No one can accurately predict that this will happen with an employee, so do you understand the signs and have measures in place to be able to deal with the situation should the need arise?
If you don’t, then it’s time to act.
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