Employee Support and Report FAQ

The Employee Support and Report Hub is a safe space for EAC employees who are experiencing or witness inappropriate behaviour such as gender based violence, bullying and harassment, discrimination, hate crime, racism, homophobia or disability discrimination in the workplace to access help and information. The support available is in the form of internal policies and procedures and external support services that can help you identify what you’re experiencing, advise you on how to stop it and give you a safe and confidential space to talk about it.
The Employee Support and Report Hub also provides employees with an option to report such incidents/behaviour, tell us what happened in a straightforward way, either anonymously or specifically, using an online form.

All employees and workers of East Ayrshire Council and East Ayrshire Leisure Trust can use the Employee Support and Report Hub.

We understand that anyone who is experiencing inappropriate behaviour will be going through a difficult time and for many reasons may not want to tell anyone what is happening. If you feel like this, we encourage you to access the support services available on our support pages and tell us what is happening anonymously. While we will not be able to contact you directly to offer tailored support or explain the options that are available, we might still be able to help others as we can use the information you do provide to monitor trends and take general preventative action.
Reporting anonymously will not lead to direct action being taken. If you would like to speak to someone or if you feel you need direct help and support, please select the report with contact details or speak to a manager.

If you report an incident/inappropriate behaviour and provide contact details, your report will be reviewed by the Equality and Diversity Officer, Workforce and Future Skills. Following the review a Human Resources Business Partner (HRBP) or another appropriate Officer will contact you directly to discuss your concerns, signpost you to more tailored support, lay out the options available and explain and agree the next steps with you.

Yes it is. If you tell us what is happening anonymously, we will not be able to contact you directly to offer tailored support or explain the options that are available, but we might still be able to help others as we can use the information you do provide to monitor trends and take general preventative action.
We want to assure users that submitting an anonymous report can still help us. Anonymous reports may provide the only glimpse of what might be happening and as such, are crucial for us to take action collectively.

You should receive an auto response by email to confirm your report has been received. No other contact will be made. The report will be reviewed by the Equality and Diversity Officer, Workforce and Future Skills. Information from your anonymous report will be used to monitor trends and take preventative steps and targeted actions.

You should receive an auto response by email to confirm your report has been received. The Equality & Diversity Officer, Workforce and Future Skills will review your report and an HR Business Partner (HRBP), will contact you via phone or email to invite you to speak to them in person. When meeting in person the HRBP will:

• Talk to you about the incident(s) in more detail
• Agree appropriate support and help you to access it
• Provide information about appropriate HR policies, procedures and formal or informal reporting options
• If necessary, talk to you about whether a disclosure to another body e.g. the police would be appropriate
• Agree and explain the next steps of the procedure/process with you

While the in person meeting will be held in the strictest confidence and your wishes on how to proceed will be respected, there are circumstances when East Ayrshire Council may need to investigate or share the information with another party such as the police without your consent due to a duty of care concern. In this case, the reasons for doing so will be explained to you.
If you prefer to only communicate by phone or email, your wishes will be respected.

The Equality and Diversity Officer, Workforce and Future Skills and HR Business Partners, HR Managers and People and Culture Managers will have access to the reports.
If you make a report with details that requires further action, the Officer appointed to facilitate that action will be provided with a copy of your report. This will be explained to you by the HRBP when they contact you to talk about the next steps.

Data held on the system will be confidential, GDPR compliant and in line with our Information Security Policy. EAC will also use anonymised data collected from this system to undertake trend analysis, produce anonymised annual reports and inform proactive preventative work. The information supplied will be processed in accordance with relevant HR policies and procedures. Further details regarding how HR process your information can be located at the Internal Employee privacy notice.

The responses you provide to the equalities data questions will not be used to change the personal data held on your existing employment records. The anonymised data you provide feeds into high level statistical reporting, to help us gain a better understanding of whether specific groups of EAC employees are experiencing problems with harassment, bullying, discrimination, hate crimes etc. 

The system is administered by the Equality and Diversity Officer, Workforce and Future Skills and HR Business Partners and they will have access to the reports.