Responding effectively to reports of harassment
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So you’ve received a report on about culture-damaging behaviour in your organisation, what happens next?
It’s important to clearly define your process and build trust between the reporter and your organisation. Who responds and how is a vital component for building that trust.
When someone submits a report they want to feel safe, comfortable and empowered. One way to ensure this happens is to have trained, reliable and supportive responders.
Who is a responder?
A responder is anybody who interacts with reports of culture-damaging behaviours like harassment, bullying, or other forms of misconduct.
- This may be people who have conversations with a reporter, to allow them to speak about their experience in a non-judgemental space and to provide them with information on support and options for resolution available to them.
- It may be somebody who allocates a report to relevant individuals or teams within your organisation to respond to the report.
- A responder may be a full-time role or it may be that employees volunteer to dedicate a percentage of their working hours to responding to reports.
Some of our partners have excellent responder programmes embedded into their organisational response, here are some examples.
Freedom to Speak Up Guardians in the NHS
Freedom to Speak Up is about encouraging a positive culture where people feel they can speak up and their voices will be heard, and their suggestions acted upon. Freedom to Speak Up Guardians support workers to speak up when they feel that they are unable to in other ways.
Dignity Advisors at UCL
UCL has a network of trained Dignity Advisors who provide an informal, confidential information service to staff and students on issues relating to bullying, harassment, and sexual misconduct.
All Dignity Advisors are members of staff in a variety of roles across campus who volunteer to work to provide advice in addition to their day jobs. Dignity Advisors receive two full days of additional training. You can find out more about UCL’s Dignity Advisor programme here.
Harassment Support Advisors at University of Manchester
The Harassment Support Advisors network at the University of Manchester work in a variety of roles across campus and provide a confidential information service to staff and students on issues relating to harassment, discrimination and bullying. All Harassment Support Advisors are volunteers and carry out the role in addition to their day-to-day duties. You can find out more about Manchester’s Harassment Support Advisors programme here.
Having trained responders dedicated to responding to reports within your organisation is one way to ensure the successful implementation of our platform.
About Training
We spoke with our partner base to understand their experiences of responding to reports, and in response to your requests, we have developed a Responder Training Programme.
Whether you are in a dedicated role, a volunteer role, or only occasionally review reports this interactive training provides participants with the know-how to respond to reports in a way that builds trust in your platform and organisational response. The training covers topics such as:
- What are bullying, harassment, and culture-damaging behaviours?
- The kinds of reports you might receive
- The range of people that report
- Key considerations to take into account when you receive a report
- Having a trauma-informed conversation with a reporter
- The range of possible resolutions to reports
The training programme will provide opportunities for participants to apply their learning to scenario reports and will encourage participants to consider their organisation’s internal processes and consider their responsibility and the limitations of their role throughout.
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What we're reading
Latest insights from the front lines of workplace culture.
The Junior-Senior Speak-Up Divide: What the Data Reveals About Hierarchy and Silence
Speaking up about workplace misconduct shouldn’t depend on where someone sits in the organisational chart. But as shown in The Culture Shifters Annual Report 26/27, it does. Junior employees are twice as likely as senior leaders to believe that speaking up is "pointless," with 54% holding this view compared to just 27% of senior leaders.
Why Collecting Misconduct Data Isn't Enough to Meet the New All Reasonable Steps Duty
Our co-founder and CEO, Gemma McCall, has written a piece for The HR Director exploring one of the most persistent gaps in workplace misconduct management: the space between collecting data and actually using it.
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The NDA Ban Under the Employment Rights Act: What It Means for HR
When you can no longer buy silence, you have to invest in safety. That's the shift HR teams now need to plan for. Some organisations have historically leaned on settlement agreements and non-disclosure agreements to resolve harassment complaints quietly, keeping the details contained and the reputational risk low. The Employment Rights Act 2025 closes that option down. Once the NDA ban comes into force, a culture of silence stops being something the law will let you enforce.
Feeling inspired?
Take the first step toward preventative misconduct management with a demo of our Report + Support™ platform. We can show you how to breakdown reporting barriers with anonymous 2-way messaging, and how to act before things escalate with name-matching and pattern-spotting across our analytics dashboard.
