Sexual Harassment Policy

Preventing Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment is unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature. The law (Equality Act 2010) protects the following people against sexual harassment at work:

  • employees and workers
  • contractors and self-employed people hired to personally do the work.
  • job applicants

To be sexual harassment, the unwanted behaviour must have either:

  • violated someone's dignity.
  • created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for someone

It can be sexual harassment if the behaviour:

  • has one of these effects even if it was not intended.
  • intended to have one of these effects even if it did not have that effect.

Netmatters will not tolerate sexual harassment and will act following the disciplinary policy for anybody found to be doing so. All complaints of a sexual harassment nature will be taken seriously and will not be ignored. This applies to everybody within the company, regardless of role or status.

Anyone working for Netmatters as an employee or contractor, or trainee has the right to work in an environment which is free from harassment. Any unacceptable behaviour reported to the company will be formally investigated.

If you experience or witness sexual harassment, you must report this to one of the people below to ensure you have an option of who to speak to, depending on who you feel most comfortable speaking with.

  • Bethany Shakespeare – HR Manager
  • Chris Gulliver – HR Director
  • James Gulliver – Managing Director

When reporting a concern, you may choose how you want this dealt with, which can be either:

  • Raise this informally
  • Raise a grievance – formally

It is important to be aware that some situations might be too serious to deal with informally, and will be discussed with the HR Director or Managing Director on how to proceed.

Any formal instances raised will be actioned in line with our Grievance Policy. If a complaint is upheld, which means if the person investigating decides the complaint is valid, the process will move to the company's Disciplinary Policy.


Third Party Sexual Harassment

A third party consists of customers, clients, service users and members of the public. If you experience or witness Sexual Harassment from a third party, this will need to be reported the same as any internal reports.

Netmatters will treat any allegation of sexual harassment with extreme urgency and it will be investigated thoroughly. The initial responses to any such situation will be managed in accordance with our published anti-harassment and bullying policy. HR will manage the initial response to any such situation at the earliest opportunity of the complaint being raised and then as necessary to ensure a full recording of the incident and subsequent actions. You will be required to write a full statement regarding the incident. If Netmatters feels this is appropriate to escalate to the third party, we will do this to allow them to deal with their employee in accordance with their own policies.


Support for Employees Affected by Sexual Harassment:

This includes:

  • People who have experienced or witnessed sexual harassment.
  • Managers dealing with sexual harassment complaints.
  • Anyone accused of sexual harassment.

Support available through work:

  • HR Department
  • Aviva Healthcare Plan

Women who've experienced sexual harassment at work can get free legal advice from:

If you're struggling to cope and need someone to talk to, you can contact:

Help after sexual assault or rape:

To contact the police:

When you're reporting a crime, you can ask to speak to a specialist officer who's trained to deal with sexual violence.

 

Time Off for Sexual Harassment

  • Sickness Absence will be marked as supported, with a plan to return to work put in place.
  • Appointments for specialist support will be approved in line with the Absence due to Appointment procedure.

The company will ensure that you have a private meeting with a Director or Senior Manager at the earliest opportunity, ideally within 24 hours of your allegation of sexual harassment. Within that meeting, they will discuss and agree with you on any additional support that may be identified as appropriate.

 

Assessing and Managing Risks

Netmatters holds a detailed risk assessment of how to prevent sexual harassment to the best of our ability.  All employees within a people manager role within the company are required to read this annually, and upon promotion into a role.

  • To help Netmatters champion this, we also need cooperation from all employees:
  • Netmatters encourages staff to report any incidents of sexual harassment.
  • Netmatters encourages staff to report situations where they felt at risk, even if nothing happened.
  • This policy sets standards of behaviour for work social events, and we ask you to take it seriously.
  • The board of Directors ensure the organisation is taking steps to prevent sexual harassment by following the policies in place and a clear reporting structure.

If you have any queries, please email HR@netmatters.com.

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