How to Deal With a Racial Discrimination Complaint in the Workplace in England

Racial discrimination in the workplace is illegal. As an employer, you must take an employee’s racial discrimination complaint seriously by dealing with it promptly. If you fail to deal with a complaint, your employee may take the complaint to an employment tribunal where you may be liable to pay damages. To avoid this from arising, this article will explain racial discrimination law and how to effectively deal with complaints. 

What is Racial Discrimination?

Racial discrimination is when someone treats your employee less favourably based on their race. This includes your employee’s:

• nationality;
• skin colour;
• descent;
• immigrant status; and 
• ethnic origin. 

Many business owners are aware that racial discrimination in the workplace is illegal. However, many business owners are unaware of how this discrimination can manifest in the workplace. For example, direct discrimination is when your employee is mistreated based on their race or what a person perceives to be their race. On the other hand, indirect discrimination is where you might have policies that put particular racial groups at a disadvantage. For example, you might ask certain employees whether they studied in the UK. This is all to say that even unconscious racial discrimination is still discrimination.

Racial discrimination can also include:

• victimisation, where you mistreat your employees if they make a complaint about racial discrimination; and
• harassment, where someone bullies or incites unwanted behaviour against an employee based on their race. 

Dealing With a Racial Discrimination Complaint 

An employee may raise a discrimination complaint regarding another employee or your business overall. When they do, you must look into the complaint immediately and follow your workplace complaints procedure.   

When you handle a complaint, you should act reasonably and sensitively to the needs of those involved. This means that you:

• respect that race discrimination can affect people in various ways; and 
• not make assumptions at the outset.

The complaint should be kept confidential, and you should only make a disclosure to those who need to know about it, such as people in management positions.

1. Speak With the Affected Employee 

The first thing you should do when faced with a racial discrimination complaint is to speak to the person who raised the complaint. Speaking to the person who has raised the complaint will allow you to understand the issue.

During this initial meeting, you should establish how you will approach the complaint. For example, your employee may want:

• an apology from the alleged perpetrator;
• a mediation session to resolve the dispute;
• you to keep tabs on the issue for the foreseeable future; 
• to deal with the complaint informally; or
• to make a formal complaint.

Although it is essential to listen to how the affected employee would like to deal with the complaint, it may be sufficiently serious to warrant disciplinary action. In this instance, you should consider the nature of the complaint and whether you should go beyond the internal dynamics of your business to resolve the issue. 

2. Deal With the Complaint Informally

If you decide that dealing with the complaint informally is the appropriate course of action, you will not need to use a formal grievance procedure. Dealing with the complaint informally may require a meeting with the perpetrator to look further into the complaint. 

Where you need to look further into the complaint, you should:

• find a neutral person to do this;
• gather evidence from all involved;  
• record how the person collated the evidence; and 
• decide what action is needed to resolve it. 

Where action is required to resolve the complaint, it could include::

• holding a meeting with all involved;
• talking privately to those involved;
• using mediation; or
• dealing with the complaint formally.

3. Follow a Formal Grievance Procedure 

Dealing with a racial discrimination complaint formally requires you to follow a grievance procedure for handling complaints of racial discrimination. 

Before dealing with the racial discrimination complaint, you must decide who will investigate it. Where possible, this should be someone neutral who is not part of the dispute. You may also need to separate employees. If so, this should be done fairly.

When dealing with a complaint formally, you must:

• follow the same procedure as previously if something similar has occurred;
• keep communications ongoing with those involved;
• ensure confidentiality; and
• keep written records.

As racial discrimination is a legal issue, those attending have a right to be accompanied by a colleague, trade union representative or someone employed by the trade union. During the meeting, both sides should present evidence. At the end of the meeting, you should let employees know how long you may need to decide the outcome, and whether you need time to investigate further. If you require more time, this could require another grievance meeting. You should also give those involved a copy of the meeting notes.

4. Reach an Outcome

When you are deciding how to resolve the complaint, you must base your decision on:

• what your meeting and investigation revealed;
• what is fair and reasonable in the circumstances; and
• any similar instances of racial discrimination.

You may decide to take disciplinary action or that you should not take any action. Regardless of your choice, you must inform your employees in writing and as soon as possible.

Key Takeaways

Your employee’s complaint about racial discrimination is very serious, and how you deal with it must reflect its severity. You should act quickly and follow a full and fair procedure. You should decide with your affected employee about the most appropriate way to deal with the complaint. For example, you might deal with the matter:

• informally via mediation; or 
• formally via formal grievance procedures. 

If you need help dealing with a racial discrimination complaint in the workplace, our experienced employment lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents for a low monthly fee. Call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.

Frequently Asked Questions