On 26 October 2024, new legislation is due to come into force on sexual harassment. This legislation:
- Introduces a mandatory duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their staff in the course of their employment
- Gives Employment Tribunals the power to uplift Tribunal compensation by up to 25% where an employer is found to have breached the new duty to prevent sexual harassment; and
- Enables the Equality and Human Rights Commission to enforce the new duty.
Employers will now be under a positive and required duty to take proactive reasonable steps to prevent the sexual harassment of their staff in the working environment. This includes sexual harassment by third parties who members of staff will come across in the course of their employment, for instance, clients or members of the public.
At this time, unfortunately the new legislation does not specify the specific steps employers should take to show they have complied with the new duty. What amounts to taking “reasonable steps” will vary from employer to employer and will depend on factors such as the employer’s size, number of employees, financial (and other) resources, the sector in which it operates and the working environment.
Examples of Reasonable Steps
- A specific anti-sexual harassment policy
- Staff training
- Zero-tolerance approach
- Reporting
- Investigations
- Risk assessments
- Consultation of unions and workplace representatives
- Third-party harassment considerations
- Workplace champions
- Appropriate monitoring of complaints and outcomes
In order to assess what steps an employer needs to take; we recommend carrying out a risk assessment to understand what risks exist of staff being exposed to sexual harassment and the extent of those risks.
We can provide a draft risk assessment document to use as a starting point to assess the risks in an organisation and work out an action plan of the steps which should be taken to minimise the risks.
How we can help you in preparing for the new duty:
- Helping you work through the risk assessment.
- Reviewing your present anti-harassment policy to ensure that it is up to date in view of the changes to the law OR producing a separate sexual harassment policy for you which is compliant with the new law.
- Running training for you to raise awareness of the rights related to sexual harassment and your policies and have specific training for managers in how to properly deal with complaints.
Reviewing your documentation with third parties to see if provisions regarding acceptable standards of conduct should be included.