I first became aware of domestic abuse in a work capacity 20 years ago when I led an HR team in the NHS. At the time, I questioned why domestic abuse was relevant in the workplace and didn’t think any more of it.
Later on, in a different HR role in the Civil Service, I was asked by a colleague going on maternity leave to cover her remit as HR lead for the organisation’s domestic abuse policy. While I agreed reluctantly at first, this became the start of my longstanding engagement to promote awareness of domestic abuse in the workplace.
My conversion over a short time arose from three key events:
I was shocked to find out the proportion of the population who are impacted by domestic abuse. The figures are currently one in three women and one in five men. One in four UK employees experience domestic abuse at some point in their life.
I had to respond directly to a domestic abuse case where a colleague was the victim-survivor. Whilst I had significant experience of staff-related safeguarding cases from my time in the NHS, this case highlighted a gap in the organisation’s procedures for how to support victim-survivors of abuse.
I worked with experts to implement a policy, processes and training for the organisation. They shared with me the pervasive nature and insidious impacts of domestic abuse at work and in society.
Making the business case
Making a business case for having a domestic abuse policy or guidance (include funding to train key individuals) was relatively straightforward, given the data available on domestic abuse’s impact on employee morale, attendance, and productivity. For me, this was made easier by working in a public health organisation that had recently co-authored and published national guidelines for employers. However, it was still essential to identify a suitably senior individual in the organisation, ideally not the HR Director, who could champion the cause of domestic abuse internally for our employees as well as our patients.
As this was before the founding of EIDA, we engaged an external expert on domestic abuse to provide wider context (data, reasons for doing something, lived experience) and to deliver initial training and awareness to key groups.
We tried to anticipate challenges from the organisation (the same questions I had ignored 10 years before, such as “why is this our problem”) and ensure we could provide evidence to overcome them.
This helped us to ensure that we had a compelling case that was proportionate to other priorities in the organisation and resulted in implementing arrangements that supported both employees experiencing domestic abuse, and managers or colleagues seeking advice on how to respond to cases.
Implementing the response
The main focus of our policy work was ensuring signposting through the intranet to external agencies that were better placed to provide expert support. However, we also ensured that other policies dovetailed in, including performance management, special leave, and financial support for temporary accommodation.
The intranet also enabled us to ensure managers had access to up-to-date materials, giving them confidence to take action if they suspected or were faced with a domestic abuse situation. This included HR advice noting that often domestic abuse is hidden behind other issues, such as performance or attendance, so may not be an obvious factor at first. It was important to make it clear to managers that they were not expected to be experts but could nonetheless be a source of support.
We established a domestic abuse Steering Group to keep oversight of the process, which I chaired alongside our Safeguarding Lead. Our group, which had a senior level sponsor, included representation from management, HR, Occupational Health, safeguarding, and trade unions. The group’s remit was to review arrangements, roll out training, and support awareness, which included events for the international 16 Days of Activism campaign every November.
The arrangements we put in place over 10 years ago unfortunately won’t stop domestic abuse, but hopefully they ensure that anyone experiencing domestic abuse or those supporting a colleague who is, have assurance that their workplace can help and know what to do.
The advent of EIDA has given us access to a wealth of resources and should be the first port of call for anyone starting out now. Use the materials available, attend their events, and ask other organisations what they do. There’s no need to start from scratch but do tailor your response to your own organisation’s needs.
Mark Eades MCIPD
January 2026
