At what point does the treatment an individual receives in the workplace become so severe and harmful that, having negotiated their organisation’s grievance policies and procedures, they end up seeing no alternative but to put themselves through the employment tribunal process?

When can exclusion become discrimination?

First, let’s look at some examples of exclusion in the workplace

• Key communications: Being left out of critical emails or updates that affect an individual’s work.
• Meetings: Not being invited to relevant meetings for an individual’s role.
• Socially ostracised: Being ignored or excluded from casual conversations or social events.
• Mobbing: when a group of staff collectively target a colleague with humiliation, ridicule, and criticism.

Now let’s consider the four types of discrimination:

• Direct discrimination, which involves less favourable treatment directly because of a protected characteristic.
• Indirect discrimination, often subtle, occurs when everyone is treated the same, however, people with a protected characteristic are put at a disadvantage.
• Harassment: unwanted or offensive behaviour related to a protected characteristic.
• Victimisation: adverse treatment because of their involvement with a discrimination or harassment complaint.

I haven’t included microaggressions, (microassaults, microinsults and microinvalidations), but see where you think they could fit into exclusionary or discriminatory behaviour.

If any of these behaviours are taking place in your workplace not only are they are probably breaching your company’s policies and staff codes of conduct, but UK legislation The questions is what are employers doing about it?

Extract from ACAS and Employment Tribunal statistics UK; workplace disputes in the UK- Wright and Hassell:

‘The ever-increasing awareness of discrimination issues, combined with the potential for substantial compensation, may lead to individuals feeling more empowered now to challenge acts of discrimination – the increases shown in the statistics suggest that this could be the case. This trend is encouraging and emphasises the importance of employers taking proactive measures to prevent discrimination in the workplace. By implementing robust diversity and inclusion initiatives, providing training, and ensuring compliance with the relevant legislation, businesses can benefit from an improved workplace culture, productivity, and employee satisfaction.’

Source: Employment Tribunal statistics UK; workplace disputes in the UK

Doing nothing shouldn’t be an option.