Employees at social entrepreneurship charity UnLtd have reported experiences of bullying or harassment at the organisation.
One in five staff responding to an internal survey conducted last year at the organisation, seen by Civil Society News, reported an “unfavourable” response when asked whether they had “experienced bullying or harassment at UnLtd” in the previous 12 months.
A similar proportion of staff gave an “unfavourable” response when asked if they had “witnessed bullying or harassment of colleagues at UnLtd” in the same time period (21%).
More than two-thirds of staff gave a “favourable” response to both questions, when asked from October to November 2022.
UnLtd chief executive Mark Norbury said the survey results were “a concern and a surprise” and that the charity was “determined to create a culture and workplace where everyone feels safe to disclose a negative experience or make a complaint”.
Meanwhile, the charity confirmed that it made 10 redundancies last month due to growing costs.
Dealing with concerns raised
In the survey, staff responded more positively to the question “If I were to report a case of discrimination, bullying and harassment, I feel that my case would be dealt with fairly and appropriate action would be taken”.
Fewer than one in 10 staff gave an “unfavourable” response while three-quarters gave a “favourable” response.
An employee anonymously disclosed their experiences of discrimination and intimidation in the staff survey and told Civil Society a complaint to the organisation was “handled in a very robust way”.
‘Very concerned’ with survey results
Nevertheless, Norbury told Civil Society the results were unacceptable and that the charity will be looking to improve on this area.
“UnLtd conducts staff surveys, and asks the difficult questions, regularly because we want to understand, learn and improve as we are committed to the wellbeing of our team. We have zero tolerance of bullying and harassment,” he said.
“The staff survey findings are therefore a concern and a surprise. In our 2021 survey 2% of staff said that they had witnessed bullying or harassment at UnLtd. We had no disclosures around bullying or harassment in the two years up until September 2022 (our survey went out in October 2022).
“In the same 2022 survey, 83% of staff told us that they feel proud to work at UnLtd. So we want to understand these findings and we are determined to create a culture and workplace where everyone feels safe to disclose a negative experience or make a complaint, and knows that we will act fairly, thoughtfully and responsively, fully in line with our values.
“We are in discussion with members of our equity, diversity inclusion and belonging steering group (including trustees) about the best approach to ensure we are as safe, inclusive and caring an employer as we can be.”
Redundancies
UnLtd confirmed it made 10 staff redundant at the end of March.
Internal documents seen by Civil Society News produced before the redundancies read: “Our cost base has grown 15% over the last few years, and the funding is just not there to sustain this, so we are having to make the difficult decision to further reduce our spend,” one file says.
“We are proposing a 15% reduction in headcount across the organisation. The colleagues whose roles are directly impacted by the changes are being actively consulted on the proposed changes and providing feedback on them.”
Another document indicates the charity’s plan to “stop the policy and public affairs elements of our work”, with its external affairs team being reduced in size as a result.
Norbury said the restructure is unrelated to the survey results.
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