All employment tribunal cases cause some disruption to the lives of those involved — applicants, those against whom they have made a claim and work colleagues, but sexual and racial harassment cases in particular leave a legacy of distress, resentment and hostility from which organisations, not to mention individuals, sometimes never really recover.

So what can be done to minimise the risks, to deal with the issues if a harassment claim is brought and, above all, to get back to normal afterwards and prevent costly recurrence?

Picking Up the Pieces: how organisations manage the aftermath of harassment complaints,* a new report from the Wainwright Trust on what employers actually do and what they could do to prevent and deal with harassment in the workplace, fills a significant gap in existing management guidance. Based on research commissioned from Dr Jeanne Gregory, Professor of Gender Studies at Middlesex University, the report details the experiences of employers in both the private and public sectors, including the uniformed services. The lessons they have learned and been prepared to share are amplified in an invaluable 'Guidelines for employers' chapter by the long and practical experience in this field of a number of the Wainwright Trust trustees.

The report begins with some background to case law developments, other research and existing guidelines, before detailing Dr Gregory's more recent survey focusing on the management of the aftermath of harassment cases. After describing the practices she found, it then includes 11 more in-depth case studies, of which three are named organisations — the Metropolitan Police, the South Wales Fire Service and the armed forces.

Finally, the 'Guidelines for employers' suggest what organisations should do: before — to avoid harassment complaints occurring, during — if a claim is made, and afterwards — both to deal with the specific problems arising from the case and to avoid similar problems in future.

* ISBN 0-9543479-0-0

For PDF version click here — Acrobat Reader required.

In the past few years, downsizing and delayering have been accompanied by a massive shift in day-to-day decision making to line managers. Central personnel departments have shrunk or even disappeared altogether. Amidst all this change, what has happened to the equal opportunities policies and practices which had been established by those central personnel departments before these changes took place?

To find out, the Wainwright Trust commissioned two studies — one in the private and one in the public sector. The private sector study was carried out by Dr Judith Foreman of the Bradford and Ilkley Community College and Rachel Bedingfield of the Trinity and All Saints University College, Leeds. The public sector study was carried out by Mary Coussey of Cambridge University's Judge Institute of Management Studies and former director of employment with the Commission for Racial Equality.

In spite of the recognition that devolution has the potential for ensuring that equality issues feature in line managers' business decisions, the practice of equal opportunities is shown to have suffered somewhat as a result of the organisational changes, especially in the private sector. In the public sector, good practice has survived better, perhaps because equality has come to be seen as part of a wider public service ethic. Nevertheless, there are dangers in the public sector that the understanding of equal opportunities principles amongst managers derives from the period before devolution and that market testing and compulsory competitive tendering may lead to expenditure on equal opportunities being seen as an unsustainable overhead.

The report sets out a number of recommendations for both sectors to maintain and improve equal opportunities in the new organisational setting.

These studies have been made possible by donations to the Wainwright Trust from many sponsors, both companles. and individual supporters. The private sector study was supported partly from the Trust's general fund and partly by British Gas pIc. The Trust is very grateful to all these donors.

Afro-Caribbean managers and would-be managers suffer considerably greater disadvantage in the workplace than working women, according to a new report called The Cement Roof. Whereas women in management are often described as constrained by a 'glass ceiling', black people seem to be held back by a 'cement roof'. As one Afro-Caribbean manager said, "we are not expected to achieve."

The report is based on research commissioned for four leading organisations in the equal opportunities and educational fields: the African and Caribbean Finance Forum, the Foundation for Management Education, the Wainwright Trust and the Windsor Fellowship. The study was carried out by Marie Stewart and Gita Bapat of Taylor-Stewart Associates.

It shows that Afro-Caribbean people are seriously under-represented in management, even in those sectors such as public transport and the health service where they form a disproportionately large part of the workforce. Furthermore, there is little evidence, it states, to support the conventional view that the position is significantly better in the public sector. Yet Afro-Caribbeans are more likely to have vocational qualifications than white people.

The report sets out detailed recommendations and the four organisations who commissioned the report hope that employers, management education institutions, including business schools, TECs, professional bodies and trainers will be able to make useof these to bring about change.