Third Party Harassment Policy

Last updated: Feb 2025

MerlinVet Group is committed to providing a working environment free from harassment and bullying and ensuring all staff are treated, and treat others, with dignity and respect.

We ensure that we do not unlawfully discriminate against or harass other people including current and former employees, job applicants, clients, customers, suppliers, and visitors. This applies in the workplace, outside the workplace (when dealing with customers, suppliers, or other work-related contacts) and on work-related trips or events including social events.

The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) states that as employers we have to take reasonable steps to prevent any form of third-party harassment.

We expect our clients, contractors, suppliers, and partners to follow the same standards that we expect from all our employees. Our employees regularly visit or speak to clients, contractors and suppliers in several ways, either when visiting sites, in a face-to-face meeting at our offices, on an online call, or over the phone. MerlinVet Group will not tolerate our employees being subjected to any form of bullying or harassment.

For clarification we have listed below some of the forms of bullying and harassment that we will not tolerate.

Bullying – unwanted behaviour from a person or group that is either offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting, or an abuse or misuse of power that undermines, humiliates, or causes physical or emotional harm to someone. Forms of bullying are: 

• Constantly criticising someone’s work
• Spreading malicious rumours about someone
• Constantly putting someone down in meetings
• Deliberately giving someone a heavier workload than everyone else
• Excluding someone from team social events
• Putting humiliating, offensive or threatening comments or photos on social media

Harassment – Unwanted conduct that has the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of people in the workplace or of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. Forms of harassment are:

• Sexual Harassment
• Gender harassment
• Racial harassment
• Harassment related to religious beliefs
• Harassment related to sexual orientation
• Harassment related to age

Some examples of harassment can be:

• Physical – Inappropriate touching or contact, physical aggression
• Non-verbal – Staring, sending un-solicited pictures, unwanted physical touch
• Verbal – Any form of comments of a sexual nature, jokes against a protected characteristic, threats
• Visual – Sharing unwanted pictures or messages, unsolicited gestures, staring, flashing

We appreciate your support in ensuring our employees have a safe and secure working environment where they can provide the best level of service that you would expect from the business.