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Workers are being left burnt out by “poorly executed” disciplinary investigations at work that cost the UK economy £28.5bn a year, public health doctors have said.
Badly handled disciplinary proceedings damage not just the staff involved but also their colleagues and the organisation that employs them, according to the UK Faculty of Public Health (FPH).
Poorly conducted or harsh workplace investigations into alleged misconduct cause such harm that they should be seen as a threat to public health like smoking or bad diet, the standard-setting body for public health specialists said.
UK employers undertake about 1.7m disciplinary cases a year that cost £28.5bn, mainly from the dismissals and resignations such actions lead to, according to research by the conciliation service Acas, which helps employers and trade unions to resolve disputes.
However, the processes involved in many of those 1.7m actions are flawed because organisations put formal ways of pursuing them above their staff’s wellbeing, the faculty said.
Prof Tracy Daszkiewicz, the president of the FPH, urged ministers, employers and unions to begin discussing how to mitigate “the unintended harm caused by disciplinary investigations” that were “poorly conducted or applied excessively”.
The FPH said: “This is more than an organisational concern: it is a UK workforce issue with clear public health implications. The consequences ripple outward: damage to individual wellbeing, loss of trust in systems, avoidable sickness absence and the undermining of staff morale and retention. Taken together, these effects represent population-level harm.”
In an FPH discussion paper on the issue published on Monday, Daszkiewicz added: “Disciplinary processes are often applied in ways that prioritise procedure over people, failing to account for the environmental, psychological and organisational dimensions of harm. This mechanistic application is what causes damage.”
The Guardian reported on Friday on how Chloe Moffat, a personal assistant at the Treasury, killed herself after becoming upset because she had been subjected to disciplinary proceedings on the basis of an anonymous complaint.
Surrey coroner’s court heard that the 26-year-old was in line for a promotion and had been awarded a bonus for good work. But she was denied the chance to have someone support her at the disciplinary meeting and was “shocked, crying at points, distressed [and] overwhelmed during it”. Moffat was not told that her job was not at risk. She killed herself a day later.
The Treasury is bringing in new disciplinary procedures as a result of Moffat’s death.
The FPH said employers should start treating disciplinary investigations as a last resort and be guided in them by the principle of “avoidable employee harm” – an approach pioneered by Aneurin Bevan University health board, part of NHS Wales.
Research by Andrew Cooper, its head of employee wellbeing and co-author of the report, found that the last-resort process reduced the number of investigations by 71%, prevented more than 3,000 staff sick days and saved the health board at least £700,000 a year.
Niall Mackenzie, the chief executive of Acas, said: “[The FPH report] reflects our own good practice advice on how early informal workplace resolution is less costly and stressful for employers and workers.”
He added: “Trying to resolve matters informally first will usually be the best approach and benefit everyone involved. Going straight to a formal procedure should not be the default option for handling concerns at work.”
The FPH’s report also highlighted how senior managers tasked with carrying out investigations could become “second victims” of the process because of the extra workload, emotional strain and risk that staff may raise a grievance against them.
Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC, welcomed the report. He said: “Badly handled disciplinary processes are bad for business and workers. Every day, trade unions help resolve issues in the workplace and prevent problems from escalating to formal procedures.
“The best way to reduce workplace conflict is for employers to work with a recognised trade union and ensure that workers are supported by a union rep from the earliest stage.”
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In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
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