I've had an allegation made against me

You’ve been told you have behaved poorly.

It can be difficult to hear someone thinks you behaved inappropriately or bullied someone. You may be angry, confused or embarrassed. You may be worried about what people think, fearful of a disciplinary action, or even losing your job.

These things are often not clear cut.

You may not recognise the behaviours they are describing, feel misunderstood or may feel threatened yourself. Or on reflection, perhaps you did do that, but you didn't mean for it to be taken that way.

Perhaps you didn’t notice at the time but looking back, you can see how you came across. It may be a one-off, or you were stressed. In this case you may want to apologise and ask for them to forgive you.

You may feel your actions were justified.

Perhaps they were going to make an error, or you were respectfully trying to help them do a good job.

Everyone involved will be treated fairly and with compassion. Our focus is on resolving issues through reflection, feedback and discussion, only using a formal process when appropriate.

You may recognise a need to change.

Studies show incivility between colleagues makes mistakes, errors and safety issues more likely.

You will be supported to resolve things fairly.

Everyone involved will be treated fairly and with compassion. Our focus is on resolving issues through reflection, feedback and discussion, only using a formal process when appropriate.

The role of your manager is:

• To actively build a positive culture in the team
• To create an environment where people feel safe to talk to each other about issues
• If people raise concerns to respond in a neutral, impartial, fair, professional way, with discretion
• To think about the person before the process
• Provide clarity so everyone involved knows what is happening and what is going to happen.

If you need support dealing with what’s happened contact HR, Occupational Health or a union representative or someone else you trust for advice.