Riots & Unrest - how to manage your workplace and address any problems that arise

What should employers be doing to support employees through times of unrest and hate crime?

As police warn of another weekend of possible unrest and nearly 500 arrests being made over far-right disorder, we address how you can support those feeling vulnerable, take necessary steps to ensure your workplace is safe for all employees and how to react if you suspect, or are made aware of, an employee’s involvement in behaviour which might be at odds with your company values at best and criminal behaviour at worst.

How can you support your employees?

Employee safety is paramount during time these difficult times. It’s important to ensure the workplace is a safe environment for all employees, this can be done by identifying potential threats to employees and workplace and considering temporary closures or altered work hours to avoid peak protesting times.

You may need to carry out a health & safety risk assessment if you think your premises may be vulnerable which may affect your employees.

If not already in place at your company, you could offer remote working or flexible working hours to avoid travel during the protests or provide safe transportation alternatives where possible. Communicating with employees is the best way to keep everyone informed of the measures put in place.

Most importantly you should be supporting vulnerable employees. By identifying and working with those who may be at higher risk due to ethnicity, beliefs, or commuting routes you can put appropriate plans in place to best support those individuals. Employee support includes mental health support, promoting Employee Assistance Programmes and other mental health resources that are available. You can also support your employees by individually assessing the potential risks for them and discussing how any risks might be minimised. Support doesn’t stop with the employees impacted by the events; you may wish to provide additional resources to managers to help them with supporting their team.

What to do if you find one of your employees has been identified as being involved in racist behaviour online, involved in social unrest or maybe even arrested?

Firstly, it’s important to take a moment to look at all of the information that is available to you rather than react straight away which can lead to mistakes being made. Look at credible sources for information such as police reports and check the validity of the sources you are getting the information from.

Keep the information about the individual confidential. If it’s on social media, it’s likely other people within the workforce could have seen it, try and limit the spread of information. You should be seen to be responding whilst remaining professional and discreet.

It’s important to remember that the legalities around an employee’s actions or arrest can be complicated. An arrest or criminal conviction doesn’t mean you can automatically suspend and/ or dismiss an employee.

If you find an employee has been posting racist or abusive content on social media, you should act quickly:

• Conduct a thorough investigation, look into the source of the information and the context of the post.
• Refer to your policies on using social media in and outside of the workplace, how have you said that breaches of the policy will be dealt with and what are the consequences?
• Reiterate the company’s stance against racism, discrimination, bullying and harassment to all employees.

If an employee is seen to have taken part in riots, inciting violence etc you should investigate thoroughly by checking the sources of your information and confirming the employee’s involvement. Follow the appropriate disciplinary process depending on the findings from the investigation. Also consider during the investigation whether it’s appropriate for the employee to remain in work or whether to suspend the employee to protect the safety of fellow colleagues and the workplace.

If the employee is arrested the same investigation and disciplinary procedures should be followed. Other things to consider are:

• if suspension is appropriate throughout the process
• whether to hold any disciplinary proceedings whilst the police investigation is carried out
• check your contracts of employment and policies in relation to expected behaviour outside the workplace and criminal conduct.

Ideally you will have policies and procedures in place to provide clarity to employees about behaviour outside of work and support any action that might need to be taken.

In any of these cases we are here to provide advice and guidance to support you, and your managers, so please get in touch with any queries or concerns. We are contactable by telephone on 01522 275105 or web form here Contact Us - HR Branch (thehrbranch.co.uk).