As a University and a community, our thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones and those who are concerned about family members, friends or colleagues in Iran and now more widely in the region as the conflict has extended.
We offer our deepest sympathies to all those affected by these events and are committed to supporting all our staff and students who may be affected by them.
Your role as a line manager
If you are a line manager of a member of staff affected by these events, this guidance is to help you in supporting your member of staff. Please also seek support and advice from your HR Advisor on managing these issues.
We are asking the line managers of any staff affected by this conflict to be supportive, mindful of what they are going through, and to be flexible with their working arrangements to help them to cope and feel supported at this time. This is particularly challenging for those staff with relatives in Iran and other countries where communication systems are not functioning.
Please do make your member of staff aware of the range of support arrangements and Crisis24 Horizon portal that they can access and do check in with them to see if they are getting the support that they need and if there is anything further that would help them.
Please make Peter Eley and your HR Advisor and Business Partner aware of any issues where your member of staff is in need of further help.
We are also reminding all staff to continue to be supportive of one another as members of one inclusive international community.
Access to Crisis24 Horizon
In addition to the support, we’d also like to make you aware that as a member of staff with an @bath email address you have access to the Crisis24 Horizon portal. This service is free for you to use and provides 24/7 alerts of threats and disruptions, country risk analysis, and actionable safety and security advice, which are a valuable addition source of information and go beyond the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office advice.
To access this service, please visit the Crisis24 Horizon login page, register as a new user, create a password and verify your account using the link in the verification email.
Support for your member of staff
The following support is available for your member of staff and has been included in the University’s email to them.
Academic staff
Dr Sadegh Javaheriafif, Co-Chair of our International Staff Network, and Professor Charareh Pourzand, Associate Dean of Culture & Inclusion in the Faculty of Science, are happy to meet with any Iranian and other international staff colleagues who simply wish to talk and share their thoughts or feelings in a supportive and understanding space.
You can email Sadegh on sj340@bath.ac.uk, and Charareh on prscap@bath.ac.uk
Health Assured
Our Health Assured staff wellbeing support and Assistance Programme services offer free and confidential counselling support for staff either by phone or online, 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
Human Resources
Speak with their HR Business Partner or Advisor about what would help them most at this time.
Chaplaincy staff
The Chaplaincy staff are available to talk with anyone who has been affected, in total confidence. Affected staff can email the Chaplaincy team on chaplaincy@bath.ac.uk, or Ian Spence, Coordinating Faith Leader on ids37@bath.ac.uk
International travel
We are asking all staff and students planning international travel on University business to be aware that they are expected to follow University travel guidance. If you are travelling to a location the FCDO recommend against travelling to, your Head of Department (HoD) must approve the travel as being "essential" for the purposes of your work. Your HoD will need information on where you are planning to travel to, where you will be staying and the work you will be carrying out. Once you have agreement from your HoD that travel is considered essential, you must then get authorisation from the Director of Human Resources prior to booking any travel or accommodation.
The UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) has published guidance on travel to Iran. Please visit the FCDO Foreign travel advice web pages for guidance and contact details.
Identifying staff nationalities
We are only able to identify staff with Iranian and other specific nationalities on our HR records, and are very aware that there may be other staff affected by this conflict who we have not yet contacted as their nationality is not confirmed as Iranian on our systems.
Therefore, please do point anyone in this situation, who you become aware of, to use these sources of advice. In line with our advice from Crisis24 we are not emailing, phoning or texting staff or students who we know are currently in Iran, as this may place them at increased risk.