The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament, includes a new duty on employers to take “reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their employees.

We don’t know what these “reasonable steps” might be yet, but the Government has already said it probably won’t make a list of things that employers have to do. Instead, it will be up to each workplace to prove it is keeping its staff safe.

The proposed changes in the bill would also make employers liable for harassment of their employees by third parties, such as clients or customers.

The Bill would create new legal liabilities for employers by treating an employer as harassing their employee if the employee is harassed in the course of their employment by third parties (such as customers or clients) and the employer fails “to take all reasonable steps to prevent the third party from doing so”.

The Bill would also create a new corresponding duty on employers to “take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment” of their employees in the course of their employment. This duty would be enforced by the EHRC but employment tribunals would also be allowed to apply an uplift of up to 25% to employees’ compensation in sexual harassment cases where the employer had failed to uphold this duty.

Comment: "The implementation of these changes will prevent sexual harassment within the workplace."

Source: IOSH