Supporting staff

Staff are encouraged to seek support if any contact causes them concern or distress.

Empowering staff to end contact they find distressing

All staff have the authority to end any engagement or interaction which they find personally distressing or difficult at the point of occurrence. Staff should not feel they need to continue to engage in contact if it is having a negative impact on them or which is making them feel uncomfortable. This is the case whether or not they even consider it meets the zero tolerance criteria. Whenever possible and appropriate, staff should seek to end the engagement professionally and politely. This can include:

• explaining they find the situation uncomfortable or distressing and explaining what they need to happen to be able to continue
• ending a call
• not reading an email or other correspondence to the end.

When this occurs, they should take a note and discuss with their line manager as.

Supporting staff

When a zero-tolerance incident has occurred or active management approach has had to be used, all staff involved are encouraged to have a de-brief meeting with their line manager and agreed actions from that discussion noted. This ensures that we are providing support to all colleagues.

Transport Scotland has a number of policies in place to support the wellbeing of staff. Staff who experience an incident should be reminded of these options and supported to access them if they wish.

Requesting removal from direct contact

Staff can ask for correspondence to be sent in the name of a senior manager or to be removed completely from involvement in future interactions if they feel subjected to harassment, have concerns about threats, or any other factor makes them more vulnerable.