Leading international infrastructure group, Balfour Beatty, began working with EIDA to tackle domestic abuse within their workforce in 2019.
EIDA spoke to Sam Pearce, Head of Employee Engagement and Natalie Curtis, Safety and Sustainability Specialist and EIDA Ambassador, to understand their multi-faceted approach to raising awareness of domestic abuse and supporting those affected among their 14,000 employees in the UK.
Balfour Beatty has also created an infographic of their journey in tackling domestic abuse from 2019 to 2022:
How it all started
It all started with Natalie who agreed to share her own story of surviving domestic abuse in a webinar. This webinar prompted other employees to come forward and share their stories for the first time, making clear the extent to which domestic abuse was impacting our people.
Balfour Beatty then signed the Employer Initiative on Domestic Abuse (EIDA) Membership charter, making our commitment to fight domestic abuse as a business, participated in 16 Days of Action awareness-raising and created our best practice guidance on how to recognise and respond to domestic abuse. We then created a five-year plan to keep on track.
The next steps
One of the first things we did was work with EIDA to create resources, such as small ‘friends and family’ leaflets that we could distribute widely to our sites and offices. This was an easy way to make sure we reached as many people as possible. We also made sure that our employee assistance programme was adequately equipped to deal with cases of domestic abuse.
We set up a working group of ‘Allies Against Domestic Abuse’ from all areas of the business and arranged for them to be trained by domestic abuse support service, Hestia. These Allies meet regularly to share news, resources and ideas. Their details in email footers makes their role clear to all employees who may want to talk to someone about domestic abuse. We also developed an employee support page on our hub and have a communications plan with podcasts, webinars and events to raise awareness. By providing posters and leaflets for our sites we aim to ensure every employee has the tools and information they need.
The impact so far
As our number of events grows and more people see our email footers, we have noticed an increase in employees disclosing to our Domestic Abuse Allies. This highlights the importance of training employees dedicated to supporting those affected by domestic abuse. In May 2020 we were delighted to be the first infrastructure group to receive the Everyone’s Business Domestic Abuse Award by charity Hestia recognising our efforts to support employees experiencing domestic abuse.
Measuring and reporting
We prepared an initial business case for senior management which drew on the findings from our first webinar and showed how widespread the issue was and the many ways in which it affected the business and our employees. As a result of this, Balfour Beatty provided the budget to create guidance and resources to tackle domestic abuse.
Due to the complex nature of this crime, we may never know how many people our actions may have eventually helped. Most conversations on domestic abuse are confidential so we do not keep statistics. We conduct quick surveys regularly via Yammer to check that employees understand our guidance on domestic abuse and to continue to raise awareness. Our working group also informally discusses the volume of queries, and the types of information or support requested.
The impact of the pandemic
As well as explicitly raising awareness of the prevalence of domestic abuse during the pandemic and providing guidance on the signs to look for, we tried to weave it into all the training and guidance line managers received. After the first strict lockdown, we informed all staff that the offices were open for everyone to work in if they wished or needed to, ensuring that those affected by domestic abuse had a safe space away from their perpetrator.
Challenges
Some of the laws and plans on domestic abuse are complex and difficult to read and the topic of domestic abuse itself is heavy and can be distressing. But this shouldn’t put employers off taking action. With EIDA’s support, we ensure that everything we share on our internal hub is accurate and easily digestible by condensing material into ‘quick reads’ on topics such as Personal Safety and Surviving Economic Abuse It’s essential we are fully inclusive in our conversations, resources and signposting, we were delighted to host a Men’s Health panel on International Men’s Day with Man Kind charity speaking on domestic abuse towards men and the support available.
What are your plans for the future?
In addition to our Allies Against Domestic Abuse, we are now considering who else people affected by domestic abuse might turn to for support and ensure they are skilled to respond and sign-post in the appropriate way. For example, we are in the process of providing updated training to our Mental Health First Aiders. We also want to expand our knowledge to respond better to perpetrators who disclose abuse and work more proactively with our supply chain, who are already invited to our webinars and events and receive all the information we share.
Three takeaways for other employers
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Listen to and involve all of your workforce.
An employee recently sent an idea to the Balfour Beatty suggestion scheme ‘My Contribution’ about an incident that occurred travelling home from work this ultimately led to an update to the Lone Working Policy. Domestic abuse can affect anyone and this means that everyone in the business needs to be involved.
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Be flexible and sensitive.
Rather than having a prescriptive one-size-fits-all approach, we would recommend an individual, bespoke approach to each person who comes forward.
Remember that it can take time for someone experiencing abuse to make the decision to leave, but they need to make that decision themselves.
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Don’t do it all alone!
Don’t hesitate to draw on all the wonderful external organisations and resources out there, like EIDA.
Discover the stories of other employers in the EIDA network who are taking action on domestic abuse
Resource created: April 2022
