# Workplace Surgery: Operations Director, Not HR - **Episode:** [184](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/184.md) (2025-04-01) - **Type:** workplace-surgery - **Tags:** operations, hr, workplace conflict, supervisor - **Time:** 40:31–45:42 (start 2431s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/184?t=2431](https://truthliesandwork.com/184?t=2431) --- [40:31] Al Elliott: I've documented what was reported, spoken privately with the supervisor, But now I'm completely out of my depth. We have no formal HR department, just an outsourced payroll service. Our company has never dealt with something like this before, and I'm terrified of mishandling it and making everything worse, or even worse, exposing us to legal issues. What should be my next steps? [40:53] Leanne Elliott: Oh, I see this happen so often, you know, ops directors, head of operations being lumped with HR, and it's really unfair actually, particularly without any training or any kind of outsourcing to, to help you with. I think first of all, you've done the right thing by taking it seriously and documenting everything you're doing and what's been said, um, and has been said to you. So creating that basic record is, is a really good idea, and it will be important if this does escalate and legal action, legal action is, is taken. Of course, throughout this process, being neutral, listening carefully, not brushing anything off. Take it as seriously as you've been taking it so far. The next step has to be to seek out some expert advice. You said you're not trained in this. You are out of your depth because you don't have the training. This is a very legal, legal world to be in. If I was in this situation, I'd be out of my depth. I'm not an HR professional. I'm not an employment law expert. So I'm also going to be very careful the advice that I give you, but my advice would be to seek out, seek out an expert. When something involves a potential discrimination complaint, it is really serious. It falls under the Equality Act, which protects people rightly against harassment related to race, ethnicity, nationality. So mishandling, yes, could put your organisation at risk. So even if, even though you're not HR, you are allowed to actually handle this. There's nothing to say you can't, as long as you follow through. the process so it's fair, but also that you get this advice from, from an expert to, to talk you through it. Ways that you can do that: the first one, reach out to ACAS. It offers free confidential advice to employers. There's no membership needed. They're gonna be able to talk you, talk you through this. Also, go and have a look at the CIPD website. They actually have a fact sheet on how to handle these types of processes. Or you could contact an outsourced HR provider like The Curve Group, who we spoke to last Thursday. Um, so I think that's my, my advice. Um, remain neutral, record everything, um, get, get the advice that, that you need. Um, and then finally, I guess, check if you've got any internal policies. And if you haven't, start building them, because whether you like it or not, you've been lumped with HR. So, if your organisation doesn't have these clear policies around bullying, around harassment, around grievance processes, then yeah, start building them out so that you have this grievance process, a code of conduct, simple, clear policies around equality, around, yeah, everything with that side of it is going to be a really important step as well [43:40] Al Elliott: Brilliant. Just when you say documenting everything, are we saying we're documenting everything from both sides, or is it just from the person who's complained? [43:47] Leanne Elliott: Both sides. Yeah, both sides. Yeah, because it's one of those things where if it, say, if it escalates, right, and it goes to an unfair dismissal, your only kind of point of defence is going to be documenting everything you've done. So, even if, you know, the tribunal ultimately doesn't agree with the decision made, that's less of a bigger problem than if you fundamentally not delivered a fair process, and the only way you can show that is to document everything that you do and consult with an expert [44:18] Al Elliott: So obviously what we're doing here is we're dealing with the cleanup of a situation, um, but is this also related back to the way the company's being run, perhaps? [44:29] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, because it's gonna, it's gonna build trust with the rest of your workforce that if this type of situation comes up, it's going to be dealt with professionally and seriously and comfortably for the person raising that complaint. It's like the, the Primark story we heard right at the beginning of, of the show. You want it to be taken seriously because the impact on that individual who has experienced this discrimination or this harassment has the potential to be significant in terms of their psychological wellbeing, in terms of their confidence, in terms of their career progression. There's lots of other rippling impact of going through this experience. Yeah. So, the more that you can show that you're taking it seriously, you're working with experts, you're executing everything to the law and in an ethical, moral, caring way, offering the support to the right people at the right times, then it's going to show people that this is how you deal with things like that in your organisation. They're going to trust that they're safe in that organisation should it happen to them in the future [45:30] Al Elliott: Fabulous. Fabulous. You say you're not an HR expert, but there was some pretty expert advice in there. As Leanne did point out though, all the links will be in the show notes. Don't take anything we've said here as legal advice. Is that fair to say, Leanne?