Only around half of UK staff surveyed by law firm Bolt Burdon Kemp believed their employer would take worries about bullying, discrimination or harassment seriously.

People don’t know what to do. In the same study, 59% weren’t even comfortable with talking to a professional law firm; the same proportion that it was just too expensive. 

Meanwhile, YouGov research in 2021 showed that, across the UK, 23% of employees had experienced some kind of discrimination (up to 30% in London). Among people from minority ethnic backgrounds the figure rose to 49%); among LGBT+ 47%; and those people with a disability (33%).

So what’s happened as a result of all the new initiatives and awareness campaigns brought in by HR? New attention to the potential for bullying and other kinds of inappropriate workplace behaviours in recent years doesn’t appear to have made any substantial difference to outcomes.

Still there’s a binary response among employees. It’s either, ‘I’m going to have to put up with the situation’; or — ‘that’s it, I’m going to a tribunal’.

The problem, obviously, continues to be that people don’t trust the attitude of line managers and HR to their concerns. Will they be seen as making a fuss over nothing; as a trouble-maker; as weak? On the surface managers are following the new support processes, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t cynicism underneath, even implications when it comes to future treatment.

Workplace cultures still value the ‘strength’ of people who focus solely on tasks and responsibilities, who leave personal concerns behind as soon as they start work. At the same time, our new working world encourages both sensitivity to anything ‘inappropriate’ and personal resilience. And this leads to mixed feelings around speaking up. Being ‘strong’ means ignoring problems or turning to hard, legally-bound processes.

HR need to find ways to break the binary situation. That means more than encouraging awareness of the issues around bullying, discrimination and harassment. Attention needs to be given to what really happens next, and the ripples of implications from cases that aren’t seen to be handled that well.

1. Offer mediation
Being able to offer mediation early on – involving someone independent to support the conflicting parties in finding an agreement and reconciliation – allows a confidential conversations to begin without the need to resort to the more formal grievance and disciplinary processes. Conversations that provide a basis for a resolution, more understanding and clarity, will begin to loosen rigid positions – and build trust in you as an employer.

Employers benefit most of all from having an established service that people can turn to as the standard, informal route. Mediation then becomes part of the culture, commonly used and trusted, with nothing remarkable or uncomfortable about it – for either individual staff or their line managers. Less and less management time is needed; issues are picked up and dealt with early.

2. Guarantee professionalism
Don’t make the mistake of using untrained managers as mediators. Experienced managers in an organisation can often assume they know best – they know the people, the situation – and don’t listen with an open mind. Instead they make assumptions and want to get to a black and white resolution as soon as possible. Without training, in-house mediators struggle to deal with sensitive situations, to take feelings into account, and only want to work with clear facts. In many disagreements, indisputable facts may be hard to come by.

There has to be trust in the mediator – not only in their training and professional expertise – but in their impartiality. There can be no suspicion of connections or sympathies that make them unable to step back from a situation, or that prompts any kind of doubt in the minds of employees involved in the mediation conversation.

3. Make space for conversations
Managers need to structure their communications and relationships with staff in ways that provide an important element of time, to mitigate against knee-jerk reactions and voicing of instant opinions. That’s why the face-to-face method needs to be used as much as possible. They provide a useful series of pauses to arrange and set up and deliver, ensuring time for reflection and a context where thought and behaviour will be different. And in support of this approach there needs to be work on ensuring people understand that face-to-face doesn’t just mean bad news.

Conversations only improve when they are a natural and regular part of working lives, not as an event – being summoned to a meeting, or into a weekly team slot. Make sure there are consistent messages about expectations of staff in terms of open conversations – and make it clear about support and development available; encourage senior managers and leaders to be the role models, and put more time and resources into supporting people to move towards dialogue with each other and away from escalating their negative feelings.

4. Investigate properly
For serious grievance cases, it’s critical that employers can demonstrate they have taken a professional approach. That means having a system in place that conforms with legislation and best practice, and the capability – either through trained staff internally or external support – to carry out watertight investigations, that aren’t going to lead to further challenges and disputes.

Like mediations, when an employer has an established investigation service in place – even though it’s only used rarely and for the most complex and sensitive cases – it’s reassurance for employees. They know they can speak out when they really have to; there’s a well-managed pathway for dealing with any problem that’s affecting their ability to do their job.

5. Build your ‘Conversational Integrity’
The best working environments are based on good conversations. Inevitable workplace disagreements and differences in opinion and personality are dealt with lightly, through open conversations that are based on trust. To reach this stage, managers and staff need better conversational integrity skills, such as listening, empathy, self-awareness, which can be learnt and practiced – until no-one should ever feel as if their problems are unimportant or unsolvable, there’s always a constructive way to reach a resolution.

When people at all levels know they can have a grown-up conversation — there’s evidence of — then there’s a positive cycle of building trust. There’s no need to think in terms of either hiding grievances or weighing up the benefits of legal action.