In a recent article, we highlighted the forthcoming new duty on preventing sexual harassment of your workers that will require employers to ‘take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment’ of their workers in the course of their employment.
This new duty on preventing sexual harassment of your workers comes into force from 26 October 2024, and we discussed this new legal obligation in our most recent webinar, ‘protecting your employees from harassment’. We discussed this new development in the law, along with existing legal and moral duties that an employer has when it comes to protecting and safeguarding its workforce from harm.
As is usual in our webinars, we engaged with our attendees to understand how other workplaces take steps to prevent and deal with complaints of this nature, this is what we found:
- 44% responded to say that they had a policy in place to prevent and deal with harassment in the workplace.
- 31% of those attending our webinar, told us that they carry out training on preventing harassment in the workplace, with just 14% tailoring their training to their audience, i.e. separate out training between managers and employees.
- 33% of those providing training, did so either as a one-off event or following a complaint of harassment.
Having a clearly communicated policy on preventing harassment during the course of employment is critical as it ensures that all employees are aware of the standards for acceptable behaviour and understand the procedures for reporting harassment. This clarity helps create a safe and respectful workplace environment, which is essential for maintaining employee trust and morale and protecting the business from risk.
Training is also another critical step for an employer to carry out its legal duties to prevent harassment from occurring. Training educates employees on what constitutes harassment, how to report it, and how to respond if they witness it, thereby fostering a culture of respect and awareness. We know through case law that training in this area must not be a one-off event, but in fact, form a fundamental part of regular, ongoing training. Both effective and appropriate training, and having in place, clearly communicated policies that are monitored, reviewed and updated are all vital in the prevention of harassment.
To accompany this webinar, we also recently published our latest Hot Topic on the subject, which you can read here.
