Written by Heidi Wadsworth | 26th September 2022
Light-hearted conversations are an important part of workplace life – nobody wants to work in miserable silence. But what point does ‘banter’ become a form of bullying, and is it damaging to workplace culture?
Here are 5 tips for employers to ensure banter does not get out of hand.
Set the standard of what is acceptable
Communication between employees is generally to be encouraged, even if the conversation isn’t directly related to work. Friendly conversation can keep spirits up during the working day and are an important factor in keeping morale high – but staff should be clear where the lines are.
Banter can cause problems when it starts to lean more towards bullying or harassment. For example, if a colleague’s personal life is being shared or people start making comments about their appearance or gender, that person might start to feel uncomfortable.
At a tribunal last year, an employee won a sex discrimination case against her boss for repeatedly using the expression ‘birds’ in the workplace to refer to women.
Make it clear that jokes and banter which relate to a protected characteristic (age, sex, disability, race) can amount to discrimination or harassment (even one-off incidents) and that “I was only joking” will not hold up as a defence.
Your business’s own standards should be clearly communicated and part of the culture, setting the tone and ensuring everyone is aware of what is acceptable and unacceptable.
Take steps to promote a positive, inclusive culture
As mentioned above, to avoid banter getting out of hand, start by setting the right tone in the workplace to encourage a safe, healthy and fair environment.
Allowing unwelcome behaviours to thrive by overlooking bullying or harassment from one or more of your employees creates a culture. Your culture then becomes all of the bad behaviours that you turn a blind eye to and leave unchallenged.
So if you create a healthy work culture where values are clear, everyone is treated with respect and works as a team, then employees are likely to treat each other this way.
We offer advice on how to create and maintain a positive company culture in our blog here.
Keep policies up to date and review them regularly
As well as robust anti-harassment and equal opportunities policies, we always recommend to our clients that they have a Dignity at Work Policy in the Employee Handbook which is accessible to all employees.
A Dignity at Work Policy is a great way for managers to ensure employees are aware of the behaviour expected of them and provide a framework for good conduct.
Another element of the policy is to provide a method for how complaints are addressed. Consider how employees at any level report bullying – i.e. where they can go if the bully in question is their superior. Don’t forget to follow this policy and process when dealing with a complaint – this will ensure your grievance process is fair as well as compliant with regulations.
Policies such as this one, equal opportunities and anti-harassment and bullying, should be kept up to date and reviewed regularly. You could allocate the responsibility to monitor each one to your management team.
Provide training on banter and harassment
Employers and managers have a duty to protect their employees and should have regular training, including a full briefing on the responsibilities of line managers with regards to bullying, harassment and discrimination. This training shouldn’t happen just once, it needs to be regularly refreshed.
Banter can also lead to people feeling excluded, so inclusivity training can help people to understand how and when this can lead to feelings of isolation.
We also recommend you give managers an overview of employment law and the Equality Act. The starting point for any case is that it is down to the employee to decide whether they find something unacceptable. Whether the ‘banter’ was offensive is judged from the claimant’s point of view, so the intention behind it, or the fact that others would have simply found it funny, does not prevent a claim.
Deal with any issues promptly
If you feel certain behaviours or banter could potentially upset someone, it is vitally important that you address the issue promptly – don’t wait for it to get out of hand or escalate to a formal grievance. Remember that acting early to stop potentially unwanted behaviours will help prevent people feeling isolated and disengaged, or even leaving the business.
Managers should also be especially aware of the dangers of getting involved in banter because this could make it difficult or impossible for an employee to raise their concerns. If in doubt, you should take a step back.
If you need support with dealing with harassment or bullying in the workplace, training staff or creating dignity at work policies, contact us by emailing: [email protected] or call us on: 01256 328428.