The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 now requires employers to take reasonable steps to prevent the sexual harassment of their employees in the course of their employment.

Further it allows tribunals to increase compensation payments to victims by up to 25% if they did not take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment.

Given that most sexual harassment cases are likely to involve discrimination, which has no compensation limits, compensation payments are likely to be substantial.

As we have seen with McDonalds the consequences go much further than monetary penalties.

All employers now need to consider if their policies and procedures are robust.

As a minimum explicit no tolerance policies will be required and employers will need to be able to evidence that they have been implemented robustly; this requires far more than writing a policy and filing it on hard drive somewhere.

All Managers and Staff will need to be trained, probably annually, and their participation evidenced.

The policies and training will need to include, as a minimum:

• A clear statement that bullying, harassment and sexual harassment are prohibited
• The consequences if an employee is found to have bullied or harassed another
• Examples of prohibited practice – including “banter”
• The action employees should take if they experience bullying and harassment; including sexual harassment
• The action employees should take if they witness bullying and harassment; including sexual harassment
• The action managers should take if bullying and harassment; including sexual harassment, is reported to them

The new act received royal assent on 26th October 2023 and comes into force on 26 October 2024.

Whilst this may appear some way off it is imperative that employers have everything in place as soon as possible.

Concrew Training offers Training for HR teams and management to help support the development of robust policies and procedures relating to the prevention of sexual harassment at work

and training for staff to improve their knowledge and understanding on how they can help prevent sexual harassment at work

Image:
harassment– later accusation, belated accusation, many years later by Valeriy Osipov used under CC BY 4.0