Reports made by staff about staff conduct

Procedure for dealing with reports made by staff about staff conduct relating to bullying, harassment, and hate incidents

Before raising a concern, staff may wish to explore options before deciding whether formal or informal action is appropriate.  

Informal options

Informal action  is encouraged where appropriate and could involve speaking to the person directly in the first instance, with or without support.   

Where support is required to tackle a concern informally, this may involve a line manager, Human Resources advisor, or accessing support through the University’s mediation service.  Other sources of support are outlined on the University’s Report and Support web pages.

Informal action can be taken without making a report (see Making a report below), but when a report is made an HR adviser will contact the reporting person to explore both informal and formal options for resolution.

Further information and guidance on taking personal action with or without support is available within the University’s Grievance Procedure. 

Formal options

Staff may feel that informal resolutions are not appropriate because of the nature or seriousness of the concern, and may wish to raise a concern formally. 

Information on taking formal action is available within the University’s Grievance Procedure. Support for formal action might be provided by a line manager or HR, or a Trade Union. Other sources of support are outlined on the University’s Report and Support web pages.

Making a report

Staff can make a report in a number of ways:

• Through the Report and Support portal
• By contacting a Human Resources (HR) Adviser
• By speaking to their line manager

Submitting a report through Report and Support will initiate contact with the reporting person from a Human Resources Adviser, where the report relates to the conduct of a member of staff.  An initial conversation will take place to discuss informal and formal options for resolution, and raise any support needs, questions, or concerns they may have.

Unless there are overriding safeguarding concerns, this discussion will not be shared with others and no action will be initiated without the consent of the reporting person.

If staff decide to take the matter further, the staff Grievance Procedure will be followed.  

Anonymous reports can also be made through Report and Support.  When anonymous reports are submitted, contact with the reporting person is not possible. If a reporting person selects the option to make an ‘anonymous’ report but then leaves information to identify themselves (ie full name or email address), this may then be treated as a report with contact details. Anonymous reporting will normally be used for monitoring trends, informing campaigns and resources, and proactive preventative work, but an anonymous report will not typically lead to a disciplinary investigation being launched. See section 5 of this policy for further information about anonymous reporting and what the information is used for. In some cases a report may be initiated by someone other than the staff member themselves, for example when someone has witnessed an incident, or when someone is very concerned about a situation they have been told about.

There are two Report and Support portals at the University one for the University of York (UoY) and one for Hull York Medical School.

The University of York Report and Support portal can be used by any staff member to raise concerns about the conduct of any staff member or student (regardless of whether the reporting or reported people are based in the University of York or Hull York Medical School).

Procedure flowchart

We've put together this flowchart to illustrate the procedure described above: there's also a Google slide version available.