What to Do if an Employee Experiences a Disability Hate Crime

Dealing with a disability hate crime is something you will hopefully never have to do, as it is an incredibly damaging, upsetting, and stressful situation for everyone involved. 

However, unfortunately, they do happen and it is something that employers should have knowledge about in the unpleasant situation this does arise within their own workforce. 

This is a significant experience that needs to be dealt with appropriately by employers, whether it happens within their organisation or outside of it. Dealing with it in the best way possible can help the employee involved heal from the experience more effectively and, hopefully, without needing to leave their job as a result. Both results are helpful for employee and employer. 

In this blog, we are going to help employers with this situation by shining some light on what to do if one of your employees experiences a disability-related hate crime. 

What is a Disability Hate Crime?

First things first, let’s define what we mean by a disability hate crime. Stop Hate Crime provide the following definition, 

“Disability hate crimes and non-crime incidents are acts which target a victim because of the offender’s hostility to a disabled person or disabled people in general.

So any incident or crime which is perceived by the victim to be a disability hate crime will be recorded as such.”

Hate crimes can be committed against a person directly or against their property. They are intentional, harmful acts which are intended to hurt or intimidate a disabled person because of their identity. This is, of course, illegal and is punishable by the U.K. police force and courts. 

Hate crimes may happen within a workplace or they may happen outside of work but are related to employees from the same workplace. Regardless, experiencing a hate crime will affect a disabled person tremendously and this will naturally bleed into their work life. An employer may notice that an employee is increasingly absent from work, their work performance suffers, or they are withdrawn and distant from other employees in the aftermath of a hate crime. 

How to Deal with the Disclosure of a Hate Crime

First of all, it is important that your employees feel that they can discuss difficult topics with you and that they can disclose important matters related to their disability. In order for this to happen, you will have to work on developing an open and inclusive working environment in which disability is not a taboo subject. Having an open-door policy and some training around talking about disability in the workplace are great starting points. 

Once you do have a disclosure of an employee experiencing a hate crime, it is important to know what to do.

These are some of our suggested steps to follow:

• Treat all disclosures with respect and dignity. Take time to listen to your employee and provide the support they need in such a difficult time. Recognise that disclosing something like this will have been tremendously difficult and thank them for doing so. 

• Acknowledge privacy and respect but do not promise your employee complete confidentiality. For their safety, you may need to discuss concerns with other organisations and you don’t want this to feel like a betrayal. Having ASIST training surrounding how to talk about suicidality would be a big benefit in this situation. 

• Write everything down. Take formal records of what you have been told and make sure there is a record of this meeting stored in a confidential manner. 

• Encourage your employee to speak with the appropriate forces, including the police and victim support organisations. If the hate crime is in relation to your company, you should do the same. 

• Allow your employee to take time off and to have new reasonable adjustments made to their employment if they need. Listen to what they feel they need right now and make the appropriate changes. Don’t tell them what they should do but take their lead and make appropriate accommodations. 

• If you gain their permission to do so, tell other relevant members of staff about what your employee has gone through with the intention that they can be more patient and understanding with this employee during such a difficult time. 

• Signpost your employee to external organisations that may help, which we will list next.

External Avenues of Support

It is important to know that you can’t deal with this situation by yourself. Your employee will need external support to deal with the disability hate crime that they have experienced. Some good options in the U.K. include:

• Suicide crisis lines including the Samaritans (116 123) and Lifeline for Northern Ireland (0808 808 8000)

• Their local GP

• A&E department for immediate self-harm and suicidal crisis situations

• Victim Support and Victim Support NI

• Scope UK

• United Response

• Mencap

• Finding a private counsellor via the Counselling Directory

It is helpful both to signpost your employee to these resources and to read up on them yourself to increase your awareness around the topic and what to do in these unfortunate situations. 

Becoming a Disability-Friendly Employer

At Careers with Disabilities, we are passionate about ensuring disabled employees get what they need from their employers so that they can have the happy and healthy careers that they want.

If you are an employer who agrees with this vision, you can use our many tools and resources to become a disability-friendly employer that connects with a diverse range of job seekers.

Firstly, you can check out our section of guidance for employers where you can learn about visible and non-visible disabilities, funding, local assistance, and much more. Then, you can take a look through our services for employers and see what can offer your business to take you to the next level of accessibility and inclusivity in recruitment and employment. 

You can also browse through our live disability-friendly job board and directory of company profiles to see who we are working with already and how they are posting jobs to a wide network of job seekers in the U.K.

We have everything you need right here to be a disability-friendly recruiter and employer. Can’t find something you need? Then don’t hesitate to reach out directly and ask.