What should you do when you are suspended from work?

Set expectations with your employer before you return. This could be discussed with your employer during your suspension if it was not covered before the official start date.

This is especially important if your suspension happened due to a company policy you were unaware of. You should also review your employee handbook.

Apologize if it is appropriate. If you are complicit in any workplace impropriety, you should apologize for your behavior and seek ways to ensure it does not happen again.

Workplace impropriety is improper behavior or actions that occur in a working environment. It might refer to wrongdoing in many forms, such as:

• The use of improper or bad language

• The use of language that offends others in a workplace

• Behaviors deemed unsuitable or unsavory for a workplace

Extreme versions of workplace impropriety include situations involving:

• Sexual harassment in any form

• Discrimination in any form

• Bullying of a coworker or subordinate

• Racism in any form

• Sexism in any form

• Corruption in any form

• Fraud on a mass scale or fraud on one professional

• The attempt to cover up any crimes related to the industry of a particular business

Understanding the reasons for your suspension can help inform your behavior and actions at your organization.

Seek out DEI training. During your suspension, you might benefit from Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training. This would also strongly show your employer that you are committed to changing your behavior. Forms of DEI training:

• Unconscious bias training. This helps employees understand their implicit and unconscious biases towards certain groups of people. It focuses on developing actions and behavioral shifts to address and ideally mitigate or completely remove those implicit preconceptions.

• Allyship training. Allyship training's focus is to enable those in positions of privilege or power to support or amplify the concerns or needs of employees from a minority group or historically marginalized community.

• Bystander communication training. This form of DEI training instructs employees on how to speak up when they witness another employee being discriminated against or if they see that the coworker is being harassed.