MA HR Solutions and Workplace Mediation

Completion rate is not evidence of understanding. That is the gap we see most often in harassment training ahead of 30 October. The training exists. The dashboard is green. The question a tribunal is likely to ask is a different one: could the people involved act on it? We recently asked five employees at a client business where they would report harassment. Five different answers. One could not say. Anonymised, details changed. What is unlikely to count as a reasonable step: - An induction slide. - An all-staff email with the policy attached. - An e-learning module from 2022 with no record of who did not complete it. - Anything nobody can recall doing. What we would expect to carry weight: - Evidence: dated, with an attendance record. - Currency: recent, with annual as the working standard. - Fit: role-specific, because managers and frontline staff carry different responsibilities. - Substance: what to do when it happens, not only what not to do. - Scope: third parties covered explicitly. - Clarity: your actual reporting routes named. - Culture: bystander guidance, which tends to separate a serious programme from a box-ticking one. The detailed regulations setting out "reasonable steps" are still to come, so this reflects EHRC guidance and what we expect a tribunal to look for. The five-employee test: ask five employees at random where they would report harassment and what would happen next. If they cannot tell you, you have delivered training. You have not achieved it. Practical HR, without the jargon. MA HR Services Ltd. | St Albans #HarassmentTraining #HRCompliance #LearningAndDevelopment #HR

Another successful workplace mediation completed within the NHS. In healthcare, unresolved conflict doesn’t stay between two people. It affects the whole team: morale, sickness absence, staff turnover, and ultimately the care people receive. Add long shifts and constant pressure, and small tensions can grow - quickly. Mediation offers a way through that doesn’t rely on formal grievances or someone “winning”. It’s voluntary, confidential, and focused on what happens next rather than who was right. This one had its twists and turns, as they often do. But it ended the way we hope every mediation will: with both people ready to move forward. If your team is carrying conflict it can’t shake off, let’s talk. #NHS #WorkplaceMediation #StaffWellbeing #Healthcare #HR

The countdown is on to the National Mediation Awards 2026, and this year it means a little more to us. Our founder, Jenny Adams, is nominated for the Rising Star award, in recognition of her mediation work with MA HR. The disputes that never became tribunal cases. The teams that found a way through. The workplace relationships that were worth saving. On Wednesday, 2 December, the mediation community comes together at Lincoln’s Inn, London, for a black tie evening: a drinks reception, the Awards ceremony, and a three-course dinner in the historic Great Hall. If mediation is part of your world, we would love you to be in the room. Group rates are available for tables of ten, so why not bring your team? Tickets are limited. Book your place here: https://lnkd.in/d6AmDYCn @the-national-mediation-awards #NMA2026 #NationalMediationAwards #Mediation #DisputeResolution #MediationCommunity #RisingStar #WorkplaceMediation

In 11 days, if a customer harasses someone on your team and you haven't taken all reasonable steps to prevent it, that is on you. I want to tell you what made it real for me. A pub landlord rang me last month. A regular had made the same remark to the same barmaid three Fridays in a row. He had noticed. He had even had a word. The only record of any of it was a line in the handover book: "usual from table 4." Anonymised, details changed. He had done something. He just could not show it. Under the new rules, that distinction is everything. From 30 October, an employer can be liable where a customer, client, supplier, contractor or member of the public harasses an employee at work, unless it can show it took all reasonable steps to prevent it. It covers harassment related to any protected characteristic, not only sexual harassment. One incident is enough. Nobody has to prove a pattern. If your people deal with the public, this is yours: hospitality and retail, health and social care, lettings and estate agency, trades in customers' homes, anyone lone-working or field-based. Reasonable steps are mostly small things done on purpose. - Know where the risk really sits. - Tell customers the standard. - Do not send someone alone into a situation you already know is risky. - Tell your team, out loud, that they can end an interaction. - Give them somewhere to report. I am curious which sector you are in. Reply with it below and I will tell you where the risk usually sits. I read every one. The last step is the one I expect to catch most employers: writing down what you did. Not because nothing was reported. Because something was, and nothing was written down. #ThirdPartyHarassment #Hospitality #Retail #SocialCare #EmploymentRightsAct

Most employers are treating 30 October as a policy question. For customer-facing businesses it is a risk question. From that date, an employer can be liable where a customer, client, supplier, contractor or member of the public harasses one of its employees at work, unless it can show it took all reasonable steps to prevent it. It covers harassment related to any protected characteristic, not only sexual harassment. It is a standalone claim, and a single incident is enough. A pattern does not need to be shown. A client told us recently that a regular had made the same remark to the same colleague three weeks running. The only record was a handover note. Anonymised, details changed. Where we see the exposure concentrated: Hospitality and retail Health and social care Lettings, estate agency and client-facing professional services Trades and anyone working in a customer's home or premises Field-based and lone-working roles What "all reasonable steps" is likely to mean in practice: - A documented assessment of where third-party risk exists, role by role. - A stated standard communicated to customers and clients: signage, terms, onboarding materials. - Controls on exposure: no lone attendance where the risk is known. - Explicit permission for staff to end an interaction. - A reporting route and a written record of the response. The fifth is where we expect most employers to be caught. Reports are usually made. The record of what the employer did next is usually missing. Which sector are you in? Reply below and we will tell you where the risk usually sits. mahrservices.co.uk Practical HR, without the jargon. MA HR Services Ltd. | St Albans #ThirdPartyHarassment #Hospitality #Retail #SocialCare #EmploymentRightsAct

World Menopause Day is on Sunday. If your most experienced people include women over 45, it matters more to your business than it looks. One pattern we see: a long-serving employee, fourteen years in post, develops a run of short absences over about six months. The absence policy counts them. A trigger is reached and a capability process starts automatically. Nobody has asked what is behind the pattern. In this case she was close to resigning before anyone spoke to her. Anonymised, details changed. The process was followed correctly. That is the problem. It had no route for the real cause. What a workable plan contains: Saying openly that symptoms are a workplace issue. Practical adjustments: temperature control, uniform flexibility, access to facilities, rest breaks, flexibility around disrupted sleep. An absence policy that does not punish it. Recurring short absences triggering an automatic capability process is where this most often goes wrong. Managers who know the basics, so nobody has to explain them before asking for anything. Someone to talk to who is not their line manager, if they would prefer. The regulatory position: under the Employment Rights Act, employers with 250 or more staff will have to publish action plans covering menopause, expected from 2027. Smaller businesses will not be required to. That makes this the year to do it properly by choice, rather than in a rush because a large client asks for it. The business case, since it always gets asked: this affects a large share of your most experienced people, at exactly the point in their careers when they are hardest to replace. The human case does not need one. If you would like a one-page plan that fits a business your size, get in touch. https://lnkd.in/e-RqZhnJ Practical HR, without the jargon. MA HR Services Ltd. | St Albans #WorldMenopauseDay #MenopauseAtWork #Inclusion #HR #SME

It is Conflict Resolution Day. Here is what mediation actually preserved for one business this year. Two senior colleagues. Eleven years working together. One incident, one email chain that escalated until both had raised a formal grievance against the other. By the time mediation was requested, the employer had started preparing for the formal process to run and for at least one of them to leave. Anonymised, details changed. In the first session, something surfaced that had never been raised before. One of them had been passed over for a senior role eighteen months earlier and had never been told why. Not formally, not informally. Not once. Every friction since, every misread email, every escalating disagreement, had been filtered through that silence. The information that would have resolved it had been available the whole time. Nobody had connected it to the grievances. Both grievances were withdrawn. Both are still in post. The business kept twenty-two years of combined experience it had been three weeks from losing. Mediation is not a remedy of last resort. It is the only part of the formal process designed to find out what is actually going on, rather than who is technically right. If you have two people who cannot be in the same room, the first conversation is free. https://lnkd.in/e-RqZhnJ MA HR Services Ltd. | St Albans #ConflictResolutionDay #WorkplaceMediation #Leadership #SME #StAlbans

She wanted to know how to word the written warning. I almost just answered the question. In September a manager came to me with a case she had been building for weeks. Verbal warning on record. Two missed deadlines in a month. Constant interruptions in team meetings. She had documented everything correctly. She had been patient. She had done the right things. She wanted the written warning worded properly. That was the question she had come to ask. I nearly just answered it. Instead I asked whether she had ever asked him what was making the meetings hard for him. She went quiet. She hadn't. It had not occurred to her to ask, because she had assumed the behaviour was the message. She was not wrong to assume that. It often is. But she had not checked. That conversation happened on a Tuesday. By Thursday she had a different picture of what she was managing. The written warning was never issued. Anonymised, details changed. It is ADHD Awareness Month. That case is one of several this year where what looked like a conduct pattern had something else underneath it. The patterns that come up most consistently: Interrupting: enthusiasm or impulsivity more often than disrespect. Missed deadlines alongside genuinely good work: difficulty with starting, not with caring. Direct, unhedged communication: reads as blunt to one person and honest to another. The friction between those two readings is real and worth naming rather than warning. Checked out in long meetings: often fully engaged in ways the meeting format does not let them show. I am not arguing that conduct is never conduct. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it needs a formal process and that process matters. I am arguing for one question first. What is making this hard? In my experience, the answer to that question has changed more outcomes than any process has. Our sister service, @SEND & Neurodiversity Solutions, supports families navigating the same recognition gap in schools. The patterns that are invisible in the classroom do not disappear. They tend to show up a decade later, often in a manager's inbox. #ADHDAwarenessMonth #Neurodiversity #LineManagers #EmployeeRelations

One question changed a disciplinary outcome last month. A client came to us in September with a case that looked straightforward. Verbal warning on record, two missed deadlines in a month, consistent interruptions in team meetings. She had documented everything correctly and wanted help wording the written warning. Before the wording, we asked her one question: had she asked the team member what was making the meetings hard for him? She hadn't. She asked. The written warning was never issued. Anonymised, details changed. It is ADHD Awareness Month. That case is one of several this year where what presented as a conduct pattern had a different explanation underneath it. These are the four we see most consistently: Interrupting in meetings: impulsivity presenting as disrespect. Missed deadlines alongside strong output: difficulty initiating tasks, not lack of commitment. Direct, unhedged communication: reads as blunt by some, honest by others. The friction is real either way. Apparent disengagement in long meetings: often full cognitive engagement that the format does not allow the person to demonstrate. This is not an argument that conduct is never conduct. Sometimes it is, and the right process matters. It is an argument for one step before that process starts. Our sister service, @SEND & Neurodiversity Solutions, supports families navigating the same recognition gap in schools. Practical HR, without the jargon. MA HR Services Ltd. | St Albans #ADHDAwarenessMonth #Neurodiversity #LineManagers #EmployeeRelations

If you're the person who owns your harassment policy, open it now. Seven things are missing from most of them. Swipe through and score your own policy against each gap. 1. Third parties. Does it cover harassment by customers, clients, suppliers and the public? From 30 October it needs to. 2. A definition people recognise. The legal wording is necessary but not enough. 3. More than one reporting route. If the only route is "tell your line manager", there is no route when the line manager is the problem. 4. What happens next, with timescales. Tell them what the first 48 hours look like. 5. A clear statement on victimisation. Raising a concern in good faith will never count against them. 6. Work-adjacent settings. Client dinners, conferences, the Christmas party, the team WhatsApp group. All in scope. 7. A review date and a version number. An undated policy tells a tribunal nobody has looked at it since it was written. Number 3 is the one that changes behaviour. Number 7 is the one that helps you in a hearing. Found three or more? That is a rewrite rather than an edit. It is work we do every week. https://lnkd.in/g99d32Yu Practical HR, without the jargon. MA HR Services Ltd. | St Albans #HarassmentPolicy #HRCompliance #EmploymentRightsAct #HR