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How new rules around sexual harassment will affect employers and employees

From October 2024, employers will have a duty to take proactive steps to prevent sexual harassment in their workplaces. Are you aware of these changes?

New rules around sexual harassment put the onus to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace firmly on the employer. If you’re not prepared for it, your company could be at risk of failing to satisfy the new increased legal duties. 

In this article, we’ll look at the new rules in more detail and how employers can prepare. We’ll also look at what you can do if you feel you’re being sexually harassed at work. Let’s get started.

What is sexual harassment?

Before you can take steps to prevent sexual harassment in your workplace, it’s useful to know what is considered to be sexual harassment.

The Equality Act of 2010 defines sexual harassment as unwanted sexual conduct that has the purpose or impact of violating someone’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive situation for that person. Examples of behaviour that could be considered sexual harassment include:

●       Sexual comments

●       Jokes

●       Staring, leering or suggestive looks

●       Sexual advances

●       Initiating conversations of a sexual nature

●       Explicit emails or texts

●       Touching or hugging

People can be sexually harassed by people of the same or the opposite sex. Moreover, it doesn’t matter if the person accused didn’t intend to cause distress if their conduct causes distress. It’s only the victim’s perspective that counts. The behaviour complained of doesn’t even need to be directed to the person who complains, they could be a mere bystander to the behaviour.

New rules for employers

From October 2024, The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act (2023) comes into force. It places a responsibility on employers to prevent instances of sexual harassment such as those detailed above. The Act states that employers must take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment. If they fail to fulfil this duty, an employee can make a claim against the company in an Employment Tribunal. 

While the exact nature of what constitutes ‘reasonable steps’ is unclear. The Equality and Human Rights Commission is producing guidance for employers to help them comply with the new duty. However, there are several steps employers could take now, whilst we await the guidance to ensure they’re seen to be doing everything they can when that live date arrives.

Firstly, you should have robust policies in place to prevent sexual harassment. This includes ensuring everyone in your organisation is aware of what constitutes sexual harassment and knows the consequences of violating the rules. Signs around the workplace reminding staff that sexual harassment will not be tolerated are an effective way to keep it front of mind and demonstrate a zero-tolerance approach.

Staff should be trained on how to conduct themselves in the workplace through regular and consistent policies. Onboarding new recruits should ensure that your policies are communicated from the very beginning. You should regularly review, update, and communicate these policies.

If someone in your company feels they’re being sexually harassed in the workplace, they should be able to report it easily. Any complaint should be properly investigated and you must take action with appropriate sanctions if you discover wrongdoing.

With these robust policies in place, and adopting these measures now, and updating them when the guidance is introduced, and the new rules are live, you have a better chance of proving that you have taken ‘reasonable steps’ should something unlawful occur.

Help for employees

If you’re an employee and you feel you’re being sexually harassed at work, here are some steps you can take to address it:

●       Report it to your manager – Make sure you note down everything that’s happened (dates, times, names, exactly what they said or did)

●       Raise a grievance – Make a formal complaint to your employer, which they will need to follow up in accordance with their policies

●       Talk to an employment law specialist – Get support and advice from trained legal professionals who can talk to you to understand the situation, and advise you on how best to handle the next steps and achieve your ideal outcome.

While it may be a very distressing situation, you can only address it by raising the issue higher. Your employer should take your complaint seriously and handle it with sensitivity.

Find out more from Couchman Hanson

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Call 01428 774756 or visit couchmanhanson.co.uk.