Your organisation will hopefully have a policy about domestic abuse. If it doesn’t you could try to influence that by raising it with your management team/company owner.
Having policies in place, talking with staff about them and supportive management can send a clear signal to victims, abusers and the wider community that an organisation does not tolerate abuse and violence.
This is good for staff and for an organisation’s reputation, but other than just ‘doing the right thing’ there is a financial incentive to tackle this issue. Time off work and decreased productivity due to the harm being experienced by victims can cost an organisation a lot financially. Other staff and customers can also be affected. Harassing phone calls, abusive partners turning up at work, physical assaults on work premises, all of these things can be damaging, time consuming and costly for an organisation to try and resolve.
Public Health England, with others, have been instrumental in producing a toolkit for employers and businesses to help them understand the issue of domestic abuse, to identify whether members of their workforce may be experiencing it and what positive action they can take to support them. Page 29 of the toolkit highlights useful resources for businesses.
The toolkit recommends a workplace policy. If you don’t have a policy already, you can find information and advice on the Equality and Human Rights Commission website about developing a workplace policy.
More information and a toolkit for employers is also available at the 16 Days of Action website.
