Category: Representing Members

Tony Rippon

The New Duty to Prevent Sexual Harassment

Tony Rippon, a white man, with greying dark hair, in a black suit jacket, white shirt and black tie with tiny polka dots.

In this blog, Tony Rippon, associate solicitor in the employment team at Morrish Solicitors looks at the new duty to prevent sexual harassment.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published a report saying workers had insufficient protection from sexual harassment. It recommended a mandatory duty for employers to take reasonable steps to protect workers from sexual harassment in the workplace. The Women and Equalities Select Committee produced a report agreeing with the creation of such a mandatory duty.

Legislation was subsequently introduced, which created a new legal duty for employers to actively prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. This came into effect on 26 October 2024.

The duty places a legal obligation on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their workers during the course of their employment. This is a proactive, anticipatory and preventative duty. Employers should anticipate scenarios when its workers may be subject to sexual harassment in the course of employment, and take action to prevent it from occurring. If such sexual harassment occurs, additional steps should also be taken to prevent it from happening again. Employers should give ongoing consideration as to if they consider they are doing enough to prevent sexual harassment from occurring.

The duty extends to preventing workers suffering sexual harassment from anyone, not just fellow workers. Previously, there was little legal recourse available to workers against their employers if they had suffered sexual harassment during the course of their employment from someone who was not also a worker of their employer (a ‘third parties’) e.g. customers, service users, independent contractors etc.

The EHRC have provided guidance for employers to follow if they wish to comply with the duty, including an 8-step guide:-

  • Step 1: develop an effective anti-harassment policy
  • Step 2: engage your staff
  • Step 3: assess and take steps to reduce risk in your workplace
  • Step 4: reporting i.e. let staff know what to report and how
  • Step 5: training
  • Step 6: what to do when a harassment complaint is made
  • Step 7: dealing with harassment by third parties
  • Step 8: monitor and evaluate your actions

Employers don’t necessarily need to take preventative steps they have identified that might help reduce the risk of sexual harassment occurring, if on balance they consider the steps are not reasonable. What is reasonable will vary from employer to employer, and involve a balancing act of many factors, including but not limited to: the size of the employer; the nature of the workplace; the risks present in that workplace; the types of third parties workers may have contact with; and the likelihood of workers coming into contact with such third parties.

The EHRC possess enforcement powers against employers. These include the powers to investigate an employer and if appropriate, issue an unlawful act notice stating the EHRC has found the employer in breach of the duty and requiring the employer to prepare an action plan setting out how it will remedy any continuing breach and prevent future ones.

Please join us in our webinar on 30 January 2025, at 12.30pm, where we will discuss this new duty more. Please follow this LINK to register your attendance. By doing so, a link to join will be added to your Microsoft Teams calendar.

Register for our seminar

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