Over the last few weeks, I have seen posts that have truly shocked me. For example, one lady wrote on Twitter that her university did not put out any guidance to support Black, Asian and any other minoritised staff during the period when the right-wing racists were on the rampage. She said she was left frightened, not knowing what to do. Another person said their company seemed not to care about how the situation was affecting them and believed it was very much business as usual.
Let’s just jump straight into it! Duty of Care;
At common law, an employer is under a duty to take reasonable care of the health and safety of its employees in all the circumstances of the case so as not to expose them to an unnecessary risk.
This duty of care extends to the employee’s physical and mental health.
The common law duty is a personal, non-delegable duty and cannot be discharged by entrusting the safety of one employee to another or to an independent contractor. (LexisNexis).
I would anticipate all organisations, public and private would know this right? Well, it seems some do not have a clue or are ignoring it. I have seen many posts and have spoken to many individuals who have demonstrated that their organisations have totally ignored their duty of care. One area that stands out more than most is when people are facing racial discrimination at work. They are ignored, and the perpetrators are allowed to continue their racial behaviour which sometimes finds them moved to other parts of the organisation to terrorise others. The person who is the victim of this situation is often, if not always, becomes mentally distressed. Where is the duty of care to support this individual? I had a call last week, from a lady who evidenced the trauma she is going through at work because of racial discrimination. I coached a lady a few years ago who was experiencing racial discrimination at work and was taking her employers through the tribunal process. She was distraught, angry and visibly emotional.
Racism isn’t the only issue where a duty of care is lacking. Another post from a Union reminded employers, that because of the hot weather, it was their responsibility to ensure that their workers were not working in dangerously high temperatures. They required rest breaks and hydration. What concerned me about that post was, it was felt companies needed reminding.
Where do we go from here, as an ED&I/HR professional, I would like to see more effort from organisations demonstrating basic values. Duty of care is a responsibility that should never be overlooked. This should underpin any mission statement or guidance your organisation wishes to share with employees and be visible and present in any external communication.
Employees, your employers have a legal requirement to provide a duty of care. You do not have to suffer in silence, make sure your organisations recognise their responsibilities.