HR update: Need to know
From 26 October 2024, all employers in England and Wales will be under a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace (the preventative duty). The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has provided guidance on this preventative duty.
What does this mean?
As an employer, you need to ensure that you take proactive steps to prevent sexual harassment of your staff. According to the EHRC, this is an ‘anticipatory duty’ designed to “transform workplace cultures”. This means that you must anticipate situations, remove opportunities for incidences of sexual harassment to take place, and take preventative action. In addition to the normal work environment, think about workplace social events that you organise such as the annual summer party or, indeed as we approach the festive season, your Christmas parties. How can you remove the risk of things going wrong? It would help if you also considered third-party harassment, whereby people may be subjected to harassment by your clients or customers.
What should you do?
The EHRC has provided useful guidance on the preventative duty, as well as an Employer 8-step guide that outlines examples of preventative action that employers can take such as:
- Reviewing Anti-harassment and Anti-bullying policies
- Conducting risk assessments
- Raising staff awareness by providing training
- Ensuring that people know how to report incidents
- Monitoring and taking follow-up actions where relevant
While an employee cannot bring a standalone claim for breach of the preventative duty, if they are successful in a claim for sexual harassment an employment tribunal can increase compensation by up to 25 percent if it finds the employer has not complied with the duty. The uplift could apply to all discrimination compensation awarded, not just compensation for sexual harassment.
In addition, the EHRC has the power to take enforcement action against employers. Employees can also report a concern that the preventative duty has been breached by the EHRC directly.
Please contact us if you require further guidance on this. We can also offer wide ranging online training on this and other topics. Again, please contact us if you would like to find out more.