Bullying: Bullying is unacceptable and unwanted behaviour, usually repeated over time, which causes a person to feel offended, intimidated, fearful or humiliated and that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. Power imbalances could be social or group power, power due to role, physical strength, or access to embarrassing information.
Harassment: Harassment is when someone engages in unwanted conduct, which intentionally or unintentionally violates a person’s dignity or creates a hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.
Protected Characteristics under the Equality Act 2010
Harassment on any of the following grounds, also referred to as protected characteristics in some legislation, is unlawful. The Open University has broadened these to include: age, caring for dependants, disability, experience of being in care, gender reassignment (including gender, gender expression, gender identity), marital or civil partnership status, membership of the Traveller community, political opinion, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, trades union membership status, and type of employment contract, such as part-time or fixed-term (for Open University employees only). We believe that harassment is unacceptable, even if it does not fall within any of these categories.
Third Party Harassment
Everyone has the right to feel safe, respected and supported at work.This includes being protected from all types of harassment related to a protected characteristic, in addition to sexual harassment. This applies to harassment from colleagues within the University but also from other third parties where they are harassed during the course of their duties. This could include harassment in person or online and be from members of the public in shared spaces or at conferences and events, students or prospective students, contractors, consultants, agency workers, suppliers and OU Partners.
Any harassment is not acceptable and should be reported to your line manager, a trust colleague or via Report and Support.