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Tag: EHRC guidance

We updated you here about the introduction of The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) 2023 which came into force on 26 October 2024.  It places a  proactive a duty on employers  to ‘take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment’ of employees in the course of their employment (“the Duty”)

The Act also provides that any compensation awarded for harassment by an employer, involving sexual harassment, may be increased by up to 25% if the employer has failed in its duty to take reasonable steps to prevent harassment.

Keys points to note are;

  1. The Duty is to take “reasonable steps” not “ all reasonable steps”  (but, see below for likely future changes)
  2. The Duty applies to employees in the course of employment BUT
  3. The Duty on applies to sexual harassment and not other forms of harassment.
  4. Breach of the Duty is not a “free-standing claim”
  5. The focus appears to be prevention of sexual harassment at large rather than specific acts

However, shortly before this Act hit the statute books the new Government announced changes in the Employment Rights Bill.  These are likely to be:

  1. Proposal to amend  S.40A of the Equality Act 2010 and ensure that the wider duty to take ‘all’ reasonable steps will apply
  2. Proposal to  amend S.40 to provide that an employer will be liable if a third party, such as a customer or client, harassed the employee in the course of his or her employment and the employer failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent that harassment. All three types of harassment set out under S.26 will be covered, i.e. ‘general’ harassment, sexual harassment and less favourable treatment following harassment.
  3. Proposal to  introduce a power to allow regulations to be made to specify steps that are to be regarded as ‘reasonable’ for the purpose of determining whether an employer has taken, or failed to take, all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of an employee under Sections 40, 40A and 109.
  4. Proposal to amend  the whistleblowing provisions in the Employment Rights Act to explicitly include sexual harassment as a relevant failure in relation to disclosures qualifying for protection.

Importantly, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has updated its technical guidance to include detailed and very useful guidance to employers on the new duty.  They have also published templates to help employer with compliance with the new duty  (See our summary here)

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