You may be surprised at a HR company saying this but we generally recommend an informal approach to managing banter and behaviour at work when it gets a bit frothy.
Clearly this is not the case where serious discrimination has taken place, or where you have received a complaint as these should always be investigated and then result in a fair outcome for all, but that also limits the chances of any recurrence.
However, we find that in most cases the general banter and behaviour that goes a little too far is rarely a blockbuster event like someone using ‘the n-word’ as that would be a red line, but what individuals consider to be light hearted comments, maybe about female drivers or describing something as ‘a bit gay’.
Although no offence is intended in such comments, they are above the line in terms of what is acceptable at work, and often lead to an uncomfortable culture for colleagues, and the risk of tribunal cases – that the employer will almost certainly lose.
In such circumstances, although the law is clear that disciplinary action should be taken, in our experience a more effective approach is to tackle the individuals in an informal way but then move to formal action if the behaviour persists.
What do we mean by tackling this informally? Clearly it depends on the organisation’s culture but training your managers to identify the types of comments and other behaviours that go over the top and then to ask them to take the individual to one side and have a quiet word normally does the trick.
We find that if you explain to an individual that some may find their comments offensive they are horrified, had no intention of causing offence and are all too happy to correct their behaviour. Those that aren’t will trip themselves up again soon enough, and a more formal process will then need to be followed.
For more details of what banter and behaviours in work would class as going too far, and further details of how to tackle them, informally in the first instance, see our 40 minute ‘banter and behaviour in the workplace’ e-learning course.
See below for more details. Most of our customers choose to either train their management team or all of their employees. If you choose to do this, and wish to purchase multiple courses please contact us, we offer good discounts on the normal £49.95 price for bulk purchases.
Banter & Behaviour in the Workplace
This new e-learning course describes the various forms of harassment and discrimination in an easy-to-understand format so organisations can appreciate where the bar is at work between acceptable behaviour and that which is likely to lead to a grievance or successful Tribunal claim.
For more details about the course, HR, discrimination or harassment in general please contact us. We would love you hear from you.