Key Issues and Principles in the Implementation of
Harassment or First Contact Schemes
The fundamental principle of First Contact schemes
based on best practice and research outcomes is that the
contact person is not an advisor and should not seek to
influence or direct the client into any particular
course of action.
For this reason contact persons should not be called
advisors as it is their primary function to empower
clients to make their own choices and to take
responsibility for those choices; not to assume
responsibility for making an assessment of the options
on behalf of the client.
In this way the First Contact is not meant to be an
expert on harassment or a pseudo legal advisor or
psycho-therapist but is instead a trusted colleague who
has received training in the policies and procedures and
communication skills and so can provide support and
information for the client- but not advice.
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Going hand in hand with the principle of empowerment
is that of impartiality. As Contact Officers are only
ever hearing ‘one side of the story’ they are not in the
position to determine whether or not bullying or
harassment has actually occurred.
It is therefore extremely important that the scheme
operate in such a way that its officers are supportive
and empathic with their clients but also impartial in
responding to any questions about whether or not they
believe that the client has in fact been harassed.
Related to this is the need for the First Contact not
to attribute feelings or labels to the client that the
client has not expressed in their own words or to try to
dissuade the client from the view that they hold about
their situation. That is, the First Contact should not
be ‘diagnosing’ the problems for the client and needs
instead to be responding to the person’s own perception
of what is happening to them.
Nor are such schemes meant in any way to resemble any
kind of investigation or complaints process in and of
itself but is instead meant to be used as a way of
providing information about how an employee can either
attempt to resolve their situation or take a complaint.
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Best practice approaches involve the use of a
confidentiality contract between the client and the
First Contact that is completed prior to the disclosure
of any information by the client to the First Contact.
This affords the First Contact and the organisation
with the protection needed in the event that a duty of
care or reporting issue arises during the contact that
the First Contact believes must be passed on to an
appropriate person within HR such as the EO or Diversity
Advisor.
Without clarifying the parameters in this way prior
to the contact, problems can arise when clients disclose
matters of a serious nature and then expect that nothing
will be said or done by the First Contact if that is
what the client wants.
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It is extremely important that the First Contact does
not see themselves as a mediator. Occasionally the First
Contact may be asked by the client to attend a meeting
with the client and the other party and it is in this
situation that they can be easily drawn into a mediation
role by either party.
First Contacts need to receive very good training in
knowing how to resist this kind of intervention role as
they are not trained or qualified to undertake such a
role. In addition they do not know the whole story and
have not met separately with the other party and so can
only know or understand the issues from the client’s
perspective; in this sense they are totally ill prepared
to perform the role of an impartial mediator.
The other role they can be drawn into is that of an
advocate for the client whereby they speak on behalf of
the client and attempt to resolve it on their behalf.
This is fraught with danger and is again not a best
practice approach for a First Contact to adopt.
First Contact training must therefore emphasise the
importance in these situations of being involved in such
meetings as a person who is there to provide moral
support for the client only and that they cannot speak
on their behalf for the other party. They can of course
address the other person in the meeting if they feel
that they can provide some clarity for the process or if
there are concerns about the way the meeting is being
conducted. If the client finds this unacceptable then
the First Contact needs to be able to set the boundary
and explain that this is all they are able to do.
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All good First Contact schemes involve a monitoring
role as clients may sometimes choose not to take any
action and the First Contact needs to monitor these
cases on a regular basis with the client in order to
determine if the situation is escalating or is
improving.
This can be a difficult stage in some cases as at
some point the First Contact may need to report a
situation that is escalating or going on for too long
but where the client still chooses not to act.
The monitoring role may also be seen to be leaving
line management ‘out of the loop’ and this is certainly
where First Contact schemes are at their weakest as a
number of problems may remain ‘hidden’ or silent within
the First Contact scheme that may need to come to the
attention of management.
However the fundamental flaw in these situations is
more often than not with the complaints procedures of
the organisation as the client is choosing to do nothing
as there are insufficient or poorly executed informal
procedures for resolving the conflict.
As a result of this the client instead chooses to
just ‘let someone know’, being the First Contact and
does not want to escalate the situation into a formal
complaint but does not see any clear or effective way to
reach resolution informally.
It is only through careful review and evaluation of
the First Contact scheme that a situation can be
identified whereby too many clients are being monitored
over a period of time without any action being taken. If
this were to occur then the First Contact scheme runs
the danger of effectively becoming a smokescreen for the
organisation and a way for avoiding dealing effectively
with inappropriate behaviours or conflict situations.
As persons self select for the role it is a high risk
category for attracting some people who have unresolved
issues of their own or past issues with the organisation
and they may see this as an opportunity to redress past
injustices. It may also attract some people who have an
‘evangelistic’ approach to harassment or who may want to
counsel colleagues or ‘rescue’ them. As such the
recruitment process needs to screen out as far as
possible these people and select those people who have
good boundaries as individuals and who are comfortable
with the limits of the role.
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