POLICY STATEMENT

Harpers Feeds is committed to providing a working environment in which all individuals are treated with dignity, respect, and fairness. We promote a culture where diversity is celebrated and discrimination, harassment, or bullying of any kind is not tolerated.

 

INTRODUCTION

Our policy reflects our zero-tolerance approach to all forms of harassment (including sexual harassment), including that by third parties such as customers, suppliers or visitors, whether the matter has been raised formally or informally. All allegations will be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated.

 

OUR COMMITMENT

We are committed to:

· Promoting equality in the workplace and dignity and respect for all

· Providing training, development and progression opportunities to all staff

· Preventing all forms of discrimination, harassment and victimisation

· Supporting employees in reporting concerns safely and confidentially

· Taking prompt and fair action where behaviour falls below expectations

· Ensuring compliance with the Equality Act 2010

We oppose any form of discrimination or harassment based on age, disability, race, ethnicity, or nationality, religion or belief, gender or gender reassignment, sexual orientation, sex (including pregnancy and maternity), marital or civil partnership status, caring responsibilities or any other protected characteristic

 

OUR HIGH-RISK AREAS

We have worked hard to identify the areas of the business that we consider to be high risk and have tackled them accordingly. Our aim us to mitigate the risk in these areas.

 

OUR POLICIES

We operate several internal policies to ensure that we are supporting our employees with dignity, respect, and fairness. These include:

· Code of business conduct. This code explains the way we behave as an organisation and how we expect our employees, customers and suppliers to act.

· Whistleblowing policy. We operate a whistleblowing policy so that all employees know that they can raise concerns about how colleagues are being treated, or practices within our business or any 3rd party, without fear of reprisals.

· Disciplinary Procedures. This ensures our staff are aware of the company standards regarding discrimination, harassment and bullying and how any behaviour which falls outside such standards will be dealt with.

· Respect, Equality & Dignity at Work Complaints and Reporting Procedure/ Grievance Policy. These procedures set out how any member of staff may report a complaint or grievance, be it formally or informally, and how the Company will support them through this.

We review all our policies regularly to ensure they reflect current best practice, or following any incident, and will add other appropriate policies as they are identified.

 

UNDERSTANDING UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOUR

Harassment and bullying may be summarised as any behaviour that is unwanted by the person to whom it is directed. It is the impact of the behaviour rather than the intent of the perpetrator that is the determinant as to whether harassment or bullying has occurred.

Bullying

· Offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting behaviour

· Abuse of power that undermines, humiliates or injures the recipient

Harassment

· Unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic which violates a person’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment

Sexual Harassment

· Unwanted physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature that has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity, or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them. A single incident can amount to sexual harassment.

· It also includes treating someone less favourable because they have submitted or refused to submit to unwanted conduct of a sexual nature, or that is related to gender reassignment or sex, in the past.

 

THIRD PARTY HARASSMENT

We recognise that harassment may come from third parties such as customers, suppliers, or visitors. We will all take reasonable steps to protect employees and will act where third-party harassment is reported, which may be a warning to the harasser about their behaviour, speaking to the management of any contractor, banning the harasser from our premises, reporting any criminal acts to the police, and sharing information with other parts of the business.

In addition, we reserve the right to terminate a customer’s contract at any time, or refuse to sell to them, until this matter has been resolved, should a case of third-party harassment come to light.

Any harassment by an employee against a third-party may lead to disciplinary action up to and including dismissal.

 

 

Any questions, enquiries or concerns should be raised to:

The HR Department

Harpers Feeds

Waldon Way

Holsworthy

Devon

EX22 6ER

Tel: 01409 254 300

 

 

 

Reviewed June 2025