General toolkits

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Title	General toolkits
Author	Employee Experience
Document type	Toolkit
Issue date	1 November 2022
Effective date	1 November 2022
Review date	31 October 2024
Version	1.0

Right to be accompanied

By law, an employee can bring one person to a formal meeting. This is known as the right to be accompanied. An employee can be accompanied by one of the following:

a trade union representative of the member's choice
a workplace colleague. This can be anyone from within the Government of Jersey but should not be a family member or legal representative

What the person who accompanies you can do

With the permission of the person raising the concern, the workplace colleague or representative is allow to:

take notes
set out the case of the person raising the concern
speak for them
address the hearing in accordance with the wishes of the employee
talk with them during the meeting
question witnesses if required

What the person who accompanies you cannot do

The person accompanying you cannot:

act in any legal capacity
answer questions put to the person raising the concern
prevent anyone else at the meeting from explaining their side of things
address the hearing if the employee does not wish it

Under discrimination legislation, employers must make reasonable adjustments to accommodate an employee with a disability. This may mean flexibility in agreeing to a companion such as a support or care worker in addition to a trade union representative or workplace colleague.

Confidentiality

We want to ensure that if you raise a workplace concern, you are comfortable in doing so. All support, advice and guidance sought from the organisation will be done on a completely confidential basis.

We recognise that it is natural to want to speak to colleagues about the issues that you are experiencing, however confidentiality and discretion can safeguard this procedure, benefitting all of those involved. A failure to maintain confidentiality and act with discretion could be detrimental to a formal process, therefore if you're participating in a formal investigation or hearing process, we will remind you that you must keep matters confidential and only discuss with your nominated:

workplace colleague
companion
union representative

Any breach of this information may result in disciplinary action.

Confidential outlook invites sent relating to a concern need to be sent set to private. Subjects of invites will be public so ensure sensitive data such as names and personal details are not entered in this field.

If a hearing needs to take place, for example, an internal hearing, the paperwork exchanged to all parties will include the investigation report, and witness statements taken during investigation interviews. These may be redacted as necessary in accordance with relevant data protection requirements, however, the allocated case manager from the HR Case Management team will advise.

If an allegation that has been raised against another employee is upheld, as this matter is confidential, you will not be made aware of this and any associated outcomes.

In informal matters, we also encourage all colleagues to be mindful of who you choose to speak to and use the relevant wellbeing sources we have available to you during this process. Wellbeing resource can be found for public servants on MyStates.

If you need additional support, please speak to your line manager, the case manager or the commissioning manager for the case.

Records Management

Warnings, including informal action

These should be forwarded to hrcasemanagement@gov.je to be saved in the internal personal file which is only accessible by HR.