Can we stop employees from having direct contact?

undercoverirish

Sorry brassic, I am thankful for your advice but for some reason I couldn!!!8217;t respond on my phone.

I!!!8217;m thankful to everyone for their advice and input.

I!!!8217;m going to follow up with the hr company however was out with a group of friends last night and one is an HR assistant. She said that we will need to investigate the grievance properly but she didn!!!8217;t know about apologising and stuff. I!!!8217;ll speak to the hr company and ask them what to do.

We do have policies but for some reason I just didn!!!8217;t think to check up on what our own policy was.

For stopping employees speaking directly, we didn!!!8217;t actually apply this to everyone. Because of the initial complaint against the !!!8220;female!!!8221; employee, we basically told her she couldn!!!8217;t have direct contact with the rest of the time unless they invited her to speak to them directly. I don!!!8217;t know why we did this as seems very unfair in hindsight. Just wasn!!!8217;t thinking properly

undercoverirish

I don!!!8217;t expect this to get a good response.... but if she has been told by the male employee to stop contacting him and she has persisted to contact him, would we be right in disciplining her or still wrong?

happyandcontented

undercoverirish wrote: »

I don!!!8217;t expect this to get a good response.... but if she has been told by the male employee to stop contacting him and she has persisted to contact him, would we be right in disciplining her or still wrong?

I can't quite believe that you are still uncertain...

Let the employee resolve his private life outside work. You are taking the flack as a company for his lack of judgement and balls. Stay out of it.

Smodlet

undercoverirish wrote: »

I don!!!8217;t expect this to get a good response.... but if she has been told by the male employee to stop contacting him and she has persisted to contact him, would we be right in disciplining her or still wrong?

I don't know why I'm surprised at this BS. My first reaction was "unbelievable" but it really isn't. Try reading deannatrois' extremely helpful links, especially the second one, imho. It says it all and you are not doing any of it. It is not a matter of opinion, it is law and you are in breach of it. Does anything get through to you?

I was interested in deanna's take on your age; you come across to me as a fossil.

getmore4less

undercoverirish wrote: »

I don!!!8217;t expect this to get a good response.... but if she has been told by the male employee to stop contacting him and she has persisted to contact him, would we be right in disciplining her or still wrong?

You are still missing the most important part of the grievance process.

Investigation

BorisThomson

undercoverirish wrote: »

I don!!!8217;t expect this to get a good response.... but if she has been told by the male employee to stop contacting him and she has persisted to contact him, would we be right in disciplining her or still wrong?

Let's expand this scenario:

Person A pursues Person B for months.
Person B eventually responds, both A and B have feelings for each other.
Person A's spouse finds out and tells A not to contact B any longer.
Person B contacts A a few times, not understanding why they have suddenly gone quiet on them.
Person A complains to the boss.

Who is at fault there?

undercoverirish

I think they would both be at fault. Neither of them should have been messaging each other in the first place. However she perhaps should have stopped when he asked. But in saying that, she hasn’t exactly been harassing him either. A couple of messages over the last 6+ months is hardly cause for concern (in my opinion anyway). And in any case is probably something they should be sorting out in their own time and not in works time.

She has been functioning properly and they work well together when they’re in each other’s company so there really was no negative impact in the workplace that I was aware of.

I think that maybe I have some unconscious bias that I’m not aware of? And I do think that I really need to think about training so I can better educated myself in the workplace on how things should be. I don’t want us to be known as the company against women as we aren’t or I certainly didn’t think I was until I’ve started thinking about everything that’s happening.

I’m 42 so definitely not a fossil!

BorisThomson

undercoverirish wrote: »

I think they would both be at fault. Neither of them should have been messaging each other in the first place. However she perhaps should have stopped when he asked. But in saying that, she hasn’t exactly been harassing him either. A couple of messages over the last 6+ months is hardly cause for concern (in my opinion anyway). And in any case is probably something they should be sorting out in their own time and not in works time.

She has been functioning properly and they work well together when they’re in each other’s company so there really was no negative impact in the workplace that I was aware of.

I think that maybe I have some unconscious bias that I’m not aware of? And I do think that I really need to think about training so I can better educated myself in the workplace on how things should be. I don’t want us to be known as the company against women as we aren’t or I certainly didn’t think I was until I’ve started thinking about everything that’s happening.

I’m 42 so definitely not a fossil!

Unconscious bias, really? :eek:

The fact that you are still trying to find a way to discipline the lady is abhorrent. You should be ashamed of yourself. If you can't understand how it might feel, think about if an employer treated your daughter or wife like that.

undercoverirish

No I!!!8217;m not trying to still discipline here, that!!!8217;s been misunderstood.

I!!!8217;m trying to simply understand would I have to discipline her if it turned out that they!!!8217;d been mutually texting and then he told her to stop and then she will continued

undercoverirish

Hands up !!!55357;!!!56908;!!!55356;!!!57339; I don!!!8217;t understand the law element of it properly so I!!!8217;m just trying to get my head round that.

Clearly I should be more aware as I!!!8217;m employing and managing people