Health and safety law and Health and Safety Executive guidance

The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (HSWA), requires employers to protect the health, safety and welfare at work of their employees (Section 2(1)), and to provide a safe working environment (Section 2(2)(e)). This includes protection from bullying and harassment.

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, require employers to assess the nature and scale of workplace risks to health and safety, to ensure there are proper control measures in place, and to take action to remove or avoid those risks, so far as reasonably practicable.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) says that bullying and harassment can contribute to work-related stress and that organisations should draw up and implement a bullying and harassment policy. This should summarise the organisation's approach to tackling bullying and harassment, and could include:

• a statement from senior management endorsing the policy;

• definitions of what constitutes unacceptable behaviour;

• a statement about responsibilities regarding the elimination of bullying behaviour;

• information about how individuals can initially raise their concerns about bullying;

• information about sources of emotional support;

• the procedures that the organisation will follow for both the complainant and alleged bully; and

• information about the potential outcomes and rehabilitation.

It says that organisations should also promote a culture where bullying and harassment is not tolerated. This could include:

• accepting that bullying can occur in any organisation;

• understanding what bullying and harassment are and what the consequences can be;

• consulting and discussing with staff;

• devising a policy and ensuring managers and harassment advisors are trained to implement it; and

• promoting the policy within the organisation and enforcing the policy.

It also advises employers to be aware of the organisational factors associated with bullying and to take steps to address them. These include:

• imbalance of power;

• few consequences perceived by perpetrator;

• internal competition;

• reward systems focused solely on outputs; and

• organisational change.

The HSE advises tackling these factors by:

• encouraging a more collaborative, less autocratic management style in managers;

• encouraging staff to attend diversity training;

• publicising the bullying and harassment policy, and explaining the consequences of bullying within the organisation;

• encouraging control and choice for staff;

• exploring levels of competition between individuals and teams;

• considering alternative incentives to achieving high performance;

• managing poor performance confidently;

• consulting staff regularly and keeping them informed during times of change; and

• ensuring managers have sufficient support to help them implement the policy.

Safety reps can use their legal rights under the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977 to investigate sources of bullying and harassment. See Chapter 4 for guidance on surveying members about bullying and harassment and on the role of the health and safety risk assessment.

Reps also have the right to take up members’ health and safety complaints and talk to them in confidence, and can legitimately raise bullying and harassment as a health and safety issue at safety committees. Safety policies can be reviewed under Section 2(3) of the HSWA, to include a section on bullying and how to deal with it.

Often bullying is best tackled through a collective approach by the union, for example, through a collective grievance.

Guidance produced by the college and lecturers’ UCU union health and safety advisor, Stopping bullying and harassment at work, explains:

“Bullying and harassment are rarely completely isolated, one-off events. While UCU can and must give support to individual members, we will be much more effective if we address the problem at source. That means looking at the institution as a whole to:

• identify who else is being bullied or harassed

• ensure your institution has a clear policy in place to prevent bullying and harassment and tackle them if they occur and that the policy is enforced.”

The public services PCS union sets out in Bullying — a rep's guide, that a preventative, collective approach is generally more productive than dealing with each individual case that arises. It advises reps to highlight the following in arguing for a collective approach:

• the effects of bullying on the organisation;

• the legal duties that employers have for the mental, as well as physical well-being of their employees; and

• the fact that failing to deal with bullying with a corporate message from the management board means that others within the management chain will see it as acceptable behaviour in the organisation.

Also see Chapter 4 for more information about taking a collective approach to bullying.