Managing unreasonable behaviour towards staff policy

Introduction

• The majority of individuals who contact Harper James communicate with us in a polite and courteous manner. This policy is aimed at how we manage the few individuals whose actions we consider unreasonable.
• When you contact Harper James to give instructions, make enquiries, provide information or raise a complaint, we believe you should be listened to by our staff, should be understood and should be given an opportunity to explain your point. We believe that you should be treated with courtesy and respect by Harper James and its staff.
• Harper James staff have the same rights, and we expect you to treat our staff with courtesy and respect.
• If you have a disability, condition or illness, please let us know and we will accommodate these where appropriate.

Purpose of the policy

• Our aims and objectives are
  • to define the behaviours that are not acceptable to Harper James,
  • to ensure that the ability of staff to conduct business is not adversely affected by those few individuals who behave in an unreasonable manner,
  • to ensure our staff have a safe working environment and are not exposed to unnecessary stress, and
  • to empower our staff to deal confidently and effectively with unreasonable behaviour.

Who does this policy apply to?

• This policy applies to everyone engaging with Harper James staff.

What behaviour is unreasonable?

• We recognise that, when you contact Harper James, you may have reason to feel aggrieved, upset or distressed.
• We do not view assertive behaviour (for example, putting forward your case in a persuasive manner) as unreasonable.
• However, we will manage under this policy behaviour that is aggressive or abusive, or which places unreasonable demands on our staff. Some examples of what we consider to be unreasonable behaviour are provided below.

Aggressive/abusive behaviour

• Unreasonable behaviour is behaviour or language (whether oral, i.e. face to face or by Teams/telephone, or written) that may cause staff to feel intimidated, threatened or abused.
• Examples may include:
  • threats,
  • verbal abuse,
  • racist and sexist language,
  • derogatory remarks,
  • offensive language,
  • rudeness,
  • making inflammatory statements, or
  • raising unsubstantiated allegations.

Unreasonable requests and communication

• Requests may be considered unreasonable by the nature and scale of service expected. Examples include
  • requesting responses to unreasonable timescales,
  • insisting on speaking with certain members of staff, or
  • adopting a "capture-all" approach by contacting many staff members and third parties.
• Communication may be considered unreasonable if, for example, individuals
  • continually contact us while we are in the process of looking at a matter,
  • make a number of approaches about the same matter without raising new issues,
  • refuse to accept a decision made where explanations for the decision have been given,
  • continue to pursue complaints/issues which have no substance,
  • continue to pursue complaints/issues which have already been investigated and determined, or
  • continue to raise unfounded or new complaints arising from the same set of facts.
• We recognise that our resources, including staff time, have to be used where they can be most effective. This might mean that we cannot respond to every complaint/issue in the way a person would like, if in doing so it would take up what Harper James regards as being a disproportionate amount of time and resources.
• We ask you to recognise that, due to the volume of work which we deal with, we may not be able to respond immediately to your requests. This does not mean that your legal requirements and associated concerns are any less important to us. If we have asked for your patience but you continue to pursue your concerns, we may consider such behaviour to be unreasonable.

How will we manage unreasonable behaviour?

• All staff at Harper James have the authority to manage unreasonable behaviour.
• Harper James has a zero-tolerance position on violence and threats against our staff, and this behaviour may be reported to the police.
• In all other cases, Harper James will only restrict communication with you if we have informed you that your behaviour is unreasonable and have asked you to modify your behaviour. We will explain what action will be taken if the warning is ignored and, if you do not modify your behaviour, we will take steps to restrict communications with you.
• If we decide a restriction is appropriate, Harper James will consider which of the options below best fits the circumstances. The level of restriction that we apply will be proportionate, taking into account the nature, extent and impact of your behaviour on our ability to do our work.
• We will be transparent and explain to you what restriction we are putting in place, our reasons for doing so and how long the restriction will apply.
• If Harper James has already made a reasonable adjustment for you, this will be taken into account when deciding upon the appropriate course of action.

Options to restrict contact

• If you continue to behave unreasonably after we have asked you to modify your behaviour, the options we will consider are:
  • Option 1: requiring you to contact a named staff member(s) only;
  • Option 2: restricting Teams/telephone calls to specified days and times, as agreed with you;
  • Option 3: terminating Teams/telephone calls if you persistently raise issues to which we have already responded in full. We will politely explain that we are unable to comment further on the matter and will ask if there are any other issues you wish to raise. If no new issues are raised and you persist in raising issues which we have already addressed, we will tell you so before ending the call. A written warning will then be sent, with a view to limiting future communication to written communication only;
  • Option 4: terminating Teams/telephone calls if you are aggressive, abusive or offensive. We will politely ask you to modify your behaviour, but if the behaviour continues, we will tell you again that your behaviour is unacceptable and end the call. The manager of the member of staff involved will then send you a written warning, with a view to limiting future communication to written only;
  • Option 5: restricting the issues we will correspond on;
  • Option 6: If you send us a large volume of irrelevant documentation, we may return these documents to you (or delete if electronic);
  • Option 7: If we have already fully explained our reasons for a decision and you have exhausted the procedure to request a review of that decision, we will decline to respond to further correspondence which does not raise new issues. The correspondence will be read and filed but we will not acknowledge your correspondence unless you provide significant new information or evidence relating to the matter;
  • Option 8: We will block your emails if the number and length of emails sent causes difficulties for our regulatory process;
  • Option 9: We will not respond to correspondence which is abusive or offensive and we will block emails that are abusive or offensive;
  • Option 10: Physical violence, verbal abuse, threats or harassment against our staff will not be tolerated and will be reported to the police, who may decide to prosecute.

• Any one of the above options (or a combination of these) may be applied by us.

How can you appeal against our approach?

• Where you consider that you have a complaint against Harper James, you can follow our complaints procedure.

Harper James – June 2026