Bullying & Harassment

There's no legal definition of bullying. We use the ACAS definition that bullying is "offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting behaviour, an abuse or misuse of power through means that undermine, humiliate, denigrate or injure the person being bullied".

Examples of bullying might include:

• spreading false rumours about you

• putting you down in meetings

• not allowing you to go on training courses when the rest of your team do

• giving you a heavier workload than others

• excluding you from team socials

Bullying can be experienced in a number of different ways, such as:

• a regular pattern of behaviour

• face to face, via social media, in emails or on the phone

• spoken or written words, images, graffiti, gestures, jokes or pranks

• unwanted physical behaviour

• at work or at work social events

• not always be obvious or noticed by others

Harassment is unlawful and is defined as unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic (age, disability, gender, gender reassignment, pregnancy & maternity, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation). Harassment violates a person's dignity and/or creates a hostile environment (whether intended or not).

Harassment can also be:

• you being harassed because you're thought to have a protected characteristic (even if you don't)

• you being harassed because you're linked to someone who has a protected characteristic

• you being upset by witnessing harassment of someone else who has a protected characteristic

Harassment is often used interchangeably with bullying, but they are two very different things.

Whilst we would never want to discourage you from raising a complaint (informally or formally), if we have reason to believe your complaint is malicious or not made in good faith, we may consider this gross misconduct and take disciplinary action against you.

We'll treat any complaint about bullying or harassment seriously, all the while taking into account the sensitivity and confidentiality of your complaint.

When you raise a concern about bullying or harassment, we'll talk to you to find out how we can best resolve things. To help us, its really important that you give us as much specific detail as possible including times, dates, details of what was said and any witnesses. Whilst there's no legal right for you to be accompanied at this point, we're happy to consider your request to have a companion with you.

We'll ask you if you want to deal with the situation informally or use our formal grievance process. If you'd like to use the informal approach, we'll give you advice and support, encourage you to talk to the offending person (or offer do this for or with you), or we may ask you to engage in mediation. We'll also look at any assistance available in the form of counselling, colleagues trained in dealing with bullying or harassment, advice from your trade union or refer you to external specialist organisations.

If your complaint is considered extremely serious, we may have to investigate formally even if you'd prefer it to be dealt with informally.

In some circumstances we may decide it is better to separate you from the person you've made a complaint against. This could mean moving one or both of you to a different shift, location or work area, or suspending one or both of you from duty. This will only be done in a legitimate attempt to protect both of you.

If you've been subjected to conduct amounting to a criminal offence (such as sexual or physical assault, a hate crime or threatened with violence), please talk to your manager. They'll help you decide whether to raise a formal complaint with the police and will support you in any way possible. They may also be able to arrange some special discretionary compassionate leave for you.

We'll respect your decision if you choose not to inform the police, but if we think there's an ongoing risk to you or to others safety, we may have to inform the police ourselves (but we'll always discuss this with you first). We'll not normally wait for the outcome of any police investigation before investigating and deciding if disciplinary action is needed.

Being sexually harassed is extremely distressing and can be life changing. We'll follow our formal grievance procedure for any complaint raised. However, we know you may be worried that you won't be taken seriously, will be asked to confront your harasser, be quizzed about your personal life, other people might find out or you'll be victimised for making a complaint so we want to reassure you that we'll support you to ensure making a sexual harassment complaint is as easy as possible, that you feel safe and protected and that the person who investigates your complaint is trained and impartial.

We'll keep you informed of our investigation and any actions we take and we'll keep an eye on things to make sure the unacceptable behaviour or treatment has stopped and that you, or others, are not treated unfairly as a result of raising your concerns. We'll also keep a record of our investigation and any outcomes.

Sometimes a lot of time goes by before someone feels comfortable enough to raise a complaint, especially in instances of sexual harassment. We're committed to taking every complaint seriously, no matter how long ago it took place and we'll do our best to investigate, although we might be unable to carry out a full investigation if the person you are accusing no longer works for us, witnesses no longer work for us, or evidence would have been destroyed as it was too long ago.