Navigating The Worker Protection Act 2023
Under the Act, Employers have a positive legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their workers in the course of their employment (the “preventative duty”). To fulfil this duty, they must take anticipatory action, i.e. they must assess the risks of sexual harassment and take steps to manage them before any takes place.
What is the duty to prevent sexual harassment at work?
As an anticipatory duty, this means the risks of sexual harassment occurring must be assessed, including that posed by those working for the employer and any third parties staff may come into contact with whilst carrying out their duties, or in situations connected to their work. This can include dealing with customers day-to-day, attendance at conferences and other events, as well as interactions in the workplace between staff or at after-work events, drinks, etc.
What you need to do as an employer to comply with the duty on sexual harassment
When the duty was brought into law on 26 October 2024, it was accompanied by the updated Sexual Harassment and Harassment at Work: Technical Guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
To further support employers with this duty, the EHRC set out eight practical steps to illustrate the type of action an employer could take to prevent and deal with sexual harassment in the workplace. This list is not exhaustive, but it is indicative of how an employer can comply with the proactive duty to prevent sexual harassment.
Develop an effective anti-harassment policy. This could be through an amendment to an existing harassment policy, or better yet the development of a standalone Sexual harassment policy. Employers can also introduce a specific Sexual harassment (worker) policy, where they employ workers in their organisation such as casual bank staff.
Engage your staff to understand where any potential issues lie and whether the steps you are taking work. You could carry out a staff survey to do this.
Assess and take steps to reduce the risk of sexual harassment in and connected to the workplace. It is recommended that all businesses carry out a thorough risk assessment in order to identify where steps need to be taken to prevent sexual harassment. Individuals within your organisation may have specific responsibilities as part of the reasonable steps you have identified.
Use an effective reporting system that allows workers to raise an issue and make sure all staff know about it and how to access it. A reporting system is an essential part of the duty to prevent sexual harassment, and it should make reporting issues as straightforward as possible so that staff members are not discouraged from using it.
Provide training on sexual harassment, how to prevent it and what to do about it, to all workers, managers and senior staff, on a regular basis. Training is integral to the duty to prevent sexual harassment, as it provides guidance on what is not appropriate in the workplace, the consequences of sexual harassment, the reporting mechanism, and the steps that can be taken if it occurs. Each organisation is unique, and for that reason any training on sexual harassment that is delivered needs to be bespoke to it, to ensure the risks specific to the business are addressed.
Take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment from third parties, eg: attach signage to the walls of the areas within the workplace where customers are present to warn that sexual harassment of staff is not acceptable; inform third parties, ie suppliers, of the zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy within supplier documentation; inform customers by recorded message at the beginning of telephone calls of the zero-tolerance policy on sexual harassment. Consider creating a Third-party sexual harassment policy that can be used to set out the rules and expectations when it comes to third parties.
Engage staff to help aid understanding of where any potential issues lie and whether the steps that are being taken are working.
Monitor and evaluate actions by logging the steps that have been taken and continue to review their effectiveness.
How we can help
We have created three packages to help you to fulfil your duties under the Worker Protection Act 2023. These consist of a bronze, silver and gold package, ranging from templates that you can download and use yourself, to a fully consultative approach where you benefit from our expertise.
