Responding to Bullying and Harassment Allegations in England

As an employer, you should take any workplace allegation of bullying or harassment very seriously. You should also ensure that you take reasonable care to do all you can to prevent staff from harassing, bullying, discriminating and victimising in the work environment. Otherwise, you will likely face allegations of bullying and harassment in the workplace, which can be tricky for you to handle. This article explains what you should and should not do as an employer when responding to bullying and harassment in England. 

Listen to the Person Making the Allegation

As an employer, you must listen to the person making the allegation of bullying or harassment. You should act sensitively and take the allegation seriously. When listening to the person making the allegation, you should, for example:

• try to understand the situation; and 
• discuss how you could resolve the problem.

When discussing how the member of staff making the allegation would like to resolve the incident, they may choose an informal approach or a formal one. If the allegation is grave, you should encourage the latter. Nevertheless, informal methods of dispute resolution include:

• asking the accused to apologise;
• implementing ongoing monitoring of the situation;
• mediation; or
• speaking directly to the accused.

Support Your Employee

When responding to an allegation of harassment or bullying in the workplace, you should also consider any support your employee may need. Being a victim of bullying or harassment is a serious matter and may have distressing consequences for your staff members. You should remember that, as an employer, you have a duty of care towards your staff regarding their health, safety and wellbeing.

Follow Your Business’ Grievance Procedure

You must follow your grievance procedure when responding to an allegation of bullying and harassment. Your procedure should clearly outline the steps you need to take. Once you deal with the allegation formally, you will typically treat it as a disciplinary offence, which means you will begin investigating the allegation. An investigation will include:

• gathering witness evidence; and 
• listening to both sides of events.

The investigation should help you decide what action is appropriate. For example, you might relocate or transfer an employee to another part of your business. You should ensure you do not breach the employment contract when making your decision. Otherwise, you may face a claim for constructive dismissal.

Do Not Ignore Potentially Criminal Harassment

If you believe your employee’s allegation of harassment constitutes a criminal offence, you should alert them to this and discuss how they wish to handle it. Legal advice or specialist advice will help you know how to do this. Typical situations where harassment at work may be a crime are where your employee:

• suffers a physical attack or is threatened with violence;
• has been sexually assaulted; or
• is a victim of hate crimes such as racist or religious hate.

Do Not Fail to Take Wider Action as a Response to the Allegation

When you respond to an allegation of bullying or harassment as an employer, it is good practice for you to do more than simply only answer that allegation. Instead, you should take a broader approach to help ensure that no more instances of bullying and harassment occur after the one you are dealing with. 

As an employer, you have to do what you can to prevent bullying and harassment from occurring in your employment. Therefore, if you do not already have one, you could devise an anti-bullying and harassment policy. Such a policy shows that you are proactively trying to prevent it from occurring. While you are not legally obliged to have this policy, this can be taken into account by an employment tribunal if a bullying and harassment claim arises. 

Key Takeaways

Responding to an allegation of bullying or harassment is a task you should take very seriously as an employer. You should act quickly and sensitively and listen to your employee regarding how they wish the allegations to be dealt with. There are many actions you should take and some you should avoid. For example, you must listen to your employee as this will help you establish what has happened and how they wish for you to handle it. Furthermore, when responding to an allegation of bullying or harassment in the workplace, it is good practice to implement measures that help prevent it from happening again.

If you need help understanding what to do when responding to bullying and harassment allegations in England, 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. So call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.

Frequently Asked Questions