Workplace sexual harassment
The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023, (“Act”) is due to come into force on 26 October 2024.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (“the EHRC”) have released a consultation on its proposals to amend the guidance on preventing workplace sexual harassment. The consultation is due to end on Tuesday 6 August 2024.
The updated guidance will help employers understand their new obligations in relation to the new preventative duty and wider equality law in general, whilst also learning the different actions they may consider taking to prevent and respond to such issues occurring within their workplace.
Sexual harassment occurs when a person engages in unwanted conduct of a sexual nature, and the conduct has the purpose or effect of (a) violating an individual’s dignity, or (b) creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for the individual.
The Act will impose a further positive obligation on the employer to take reasonable steps to protect their workers from sexual harassment. This obligation is anticipatory to avoid scenarios of workplace sexual harassment taking place.
Examples of the implementation of this may include carrying out risk assessments to establish the risk of any workers being subjected to sexual harassment and implementing procedures such as policies and training courses, which may vary between, for example, employees, supervisors and managers.
If the employer does not comply with the Act by failing to implement this positive obligation, Employment Tribunals will have the ability to increase compensation by up to 25% and the EHRC will be permitted to take enforcement action against the employer.
Initially, any reference to liability for harassment of acts of third parties was removed from the Act. However, the guidance proposes that the updated Act will be extended to apply to both actions of workers but also third parties. If an employer does not take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their workers by third parties, the preventative duty will be breached. This could have a significant impact for employers whose employees regularly deal with members of the public e.g. those in the hospitality industry.
If you are an employer wondering how you can implement the new obligations our experienced Employment law team can advise you about the requirements of the Act.
