Banning Banter in The Workplace? Say Goodbye to Your Culture!

Banter allows us to build relationships with our colleagues and makes our workdays more enjoyable. However, what happens when banter goes too far? Despite being considered often harmless, employment tribunals related to banter have been increasing across the previous several years, with 66 taking place in 2022. The complexities and nuances of banter and its role in shaping the culture of a workplace begs the question – is it time for organisations to ban banter?

Cutting straight to the point – no, we should not be banning banter. We shouldn’t be banning anything! Banning things is often not good for organisational development; it's often lazy leadership and only deals with the symptoms of issues and not the root causes of the problems at hand. Plus, banter has huge benefits and contributes to positive workplace attitudes which build team spirit and camaraderie. The real challenge for leaders isn’t eliminating banter, but fostering an environment where people are accountable for understanding the impact of their words rather than hiding behind ‘it was just a joke.’ So, how do business leaders navigate situations where the joke falls flat?

The truth is, it's not easy. The complexities of the topic make it difficult. On one side we have healthy workplace banter which boosts productivity and leads to happy work environments. However, it’s a topic which carries a lot of risk when not managed correctly and can go very wrong, very quickly. Tolerances for jokes, behaviours and actions differ from person to person, making it hard to distinguish the grey line which sets these workplace boundaries.

We often talk about the banter line as being on a bit of a cliff edge, and on the other side of that cliff edge are three buckets, the bullying bucket, the harassment bucket (including sexual harassment), and the discrimination bucket. All three present legal and cultural nightmares for organisations to navigate, especially when you consider that society is moving much faster than legislation, and when it comes to bullying, harassment, and discrimination, it’s not just employees who directly experience it who can make a claim but also those who witness it.

So, how do we tackle it? The key is to create a culture where our employees feel comfortable to challenge. We call this a ‘speak up culture,’ whereby the minute someone says something inappropriate; people feel comfortable to call out the other's comment or behaviour.

Creating a speak-up culture makes it easier for line managers to understand when they need to pull everybody back to the right side of the line and mitigates the lengthy processes of investigations or disciplinaries because you will have a workforce who feels psychologically safe to challenge inappropriate behaviours. You will also have trained your line managers in how to reel everybody back across the line if they are not already able to do this organically. Creating a culture like this is not easy to achieve and takes a lot of work, needing effective management, open communication, and patience to be maintained.

Banning banter outright is a terrible intervention and will have the opposite effect you are looking for, creating an unappealing culture which nobody will want to work in. As society continues to change culturally, and acceptable discourse evolves, your teams will be best placed to navigate these changes with minimal disruption. There is no way you can be expected to monitor what happens in every team across your organisation, but in the eyes of the law, you are accountable for it!