Agenda item

This report outlines the review and amendments to the Council’s current Grievance and Harassment Policy, which has been split into two separate policies with their own procedure documents.

Discussion

The Head of Employee Relations introduced the report which outlined the review and amendments to the Council’s current grievance and harassment policy, which had been split into two separate policies with their own procedure documents.

The revised policies provided greater accessibility and readability due to being split; greater procedural detail; more transparent explanation of processes; faster timelines for processing grievances and complaints of bullying and/or harassment; and better managerial guidance for dealing with such issues. There was also a greater focus on informal resolution as the initial response.

The revisions did not represent a substantive change to the meaning, purposes or function of the policies and were therefore not being put to the Committee for approval.

In response to a concern as to how consistency and quality of application of the policy would be managed/audited with managers, it was noted that improvements had been made with recording and this was analysed to spot any trends. Deep dives would then be carried out if required along with targeted intervention and bitesize learning. As an example, issues would be evident through high turnover for instance.

Members noted the Joint Consultative Committee comments from the earlier meeting.

Decision:

The Committee noted the updated grievance and harassment policies and procedures as set out at Appendices A to E to the report.