Workplace Harassment
Duty to prevent sexual harassment – expected autumn 2024
The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 imposes a new duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent their staff from being subjected to sexual harassment at work. Initially, the Act was to include harassment by third parties and had a higher standard of taking ‘all reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment, but these have been removed.
Duty to prevent sexual harassment – expected autumn 2024
The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 imposes a new duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent their staff from being subjected to sexual harassment at work. Initially, the Act was to include harassment by third parties and had a higher standard of taking ‘all reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment, but these have been removed.
What does this mean for your organisation?
When the Act comes into force, you will be required to take reasonable steps to prevent your workers being subjected to sexual harassment.
As the requirement to take all reasonable steps has been removed, if a claim was brought against you, you will no longer be penalised for not taking every reasonable step. You just need to establish that you’ve taken reasonable steps to prevent this kind of conduct.
To help demonstrate you’ve taken reasonable steps, it may be beneficial to have staff wide mandatory anti-harassment policies and training that is signed off and periodically renewed. Also demonstrating that steps have been taken to enable a culture of openness, such as embedding a “Speak Out” policy is advised. Additional training for supervisors and managers may also be beneficial to help them recognise, stop, and effectively deal with sexual harassment in the workplace.
Furthermore, as the third-party provisions have been removed, you will only be held vicariously liable for sexual harassment committed by your staff and other people under your control.
Discover more about the legal considerations arising from harassment allegations and the impact of the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 here.