Preventing Sexual Harassment at Work

There has been so much coverage, you would be forgiven for thinking that prior to October 2024, employers did not have a legal duty to prevent sexual harassment in the course of your employment.

In theory, you would be right. Before the 2024 duty, employers were not legally required to take proactive steps to stop sexual harassment happening. It was a reactive responsibility after a complaint was made with no obligation to anticipate risks or put preventative measures in place.

In reality employers were tackling sexual harassment before 2024. However, the burden fell on employees to report it and on employers to defend themselves once a sexual harassment claim was made.

On paper, it has all changed now. The shift to all reasonable steps this October is setting a higher bar for employers to reach to prove they are proactively preventing sexual harassment. Risk assessments, action plans, safe reporting routes, effective complaint handling and evaluating everything they are doing to just say no to sexual harassment.

Saying no to violating your dignity. Saying no to creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. And saying no to less favourable treatment for rejecting or submitting to the unwanted conduct. Will the two-year anniversary this October be a moment to celebrate everything that has been done to make work safer internally and from third parties?

Did you know the conduct need not be sexually motivated, only sexual in nature? I read the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) guidance to complement my bullet point knowledge of the duty. Copilot helped me summarise it. The EHRC’s eight-step guide helped me walk up the spiral stairwell to understand the twists and turns of preventing, investigating and handling sexual harassment cases from allegation to litigation.

So much to remember and so easy to forget.

But if it is happening to you, you can’t just forget it. If you are the line manager or bystander seeing warning signs, or the HR professional dealing with an unfolding situation, you need to be ready for informal resolution or formal action.

Talk must lead to action

This is not just a Civil Service duty. I wanted to find out more about preventing sexual harassment in the course of our employment by talking to people outside the Civil Service. I produced a podcast on preventing sexual harassment at work, wanting to know what has happened since October 2024.

‘What I’ve noticed is the conversation has shifted from reactive towards more proactive conversations. Whether that translates into genuine culture change is a different question,’ said guest speaker Jess Sandham of the consultancy Human by Practice.

Jess added, ‘We’re moving towards a clearer distinction between compliance risk and culture risk. Compliance risk is about avoiding an uplift in tribunal compensation. Culture risk is about whether people feel safe, whether your best talent stays, and whether your organisation has the trust of its people.’

‘Employers who are doing this well aren’t asking, ‘Have we done enough to comply?’ They’re asking, ‘Do our people feel safe?’ An important framing I always bring into these conversations is that the law is the low bar, not the ceiling.’

Employers should be doing more than complying with the legal duty on preventing sexual harassment. I spoke to Zoe Thomas from Hidden in Plain Sight about responding to warning signs in organisations.

‘I have seen testimonial after testimonial from people saying, ‘The signs were there, but I didn’t say anything.’ These things don’t just happen overnight. Very rarely does something in the workplace come completely out of the blue. I’m not saying it never happens, but statistically it’s rare for Person A to behave towards Person B with no warning at all. There are usually signs, a reputation, a pattern.’

‘That’s why bystander training matters: it teaches people not to become bystanders in their own working lives. Don’t ignore it. Report it. Help the conversation along. And if you don’t feel ready to speak up, write it down, keep a log, or talk to someone external.’

Investigations

The EHRC guidance advises employers to explain clearly to all workers what is considered acceptable behaviour, how to recognise sexual harassment and what to do if they experience or witness it. Keeping centralised, confidential records of all concerns raised, formal and informal enables trends to be identified.

Specialist Workplace Investigator John Walne said, ‘In cases involving allegations of sexual harassment, the employer should ideally appoint someone with the skills, training and confidence to investigate the complaint. It’s certainly beneficial if the investigator has received trauma‑informed investigation training. That training equips them to recognise what trauma is and to understand that its impact is not the same for everyone.’

Emma Hutchinson, a lawyer and specialist workplace investigator, said, ‘Decision‑makers should start with the organisation’s disciplinary framework and take it right back to basics. They should consider the nature of the conduct, its impact, any power imbalances and whether the behaviour is repeated.'

‘Consistency is important, so similar cases should be treated in a similar way across the business. The decision must follow the findings and be based on the evidence. A well‑reasoned outcome will always explain why the sanction is proportionate. I would say consistency is the key to trust.’

Outcomes

Is your organisation keeping a record of informal and formal outcomes? Is sexual harassment a dismissible offence? If sexual harassment has taken place, the preventative duty means an employer should take action to stop sexual harassment from happening again. If an employer fails to take reasonable steps to comply with the preventative duty, there are consequences:

• Up to 25% uplift of any compensation following successful sexual harassment employment tribunal claim.
• EHRC investigation, an unlawful act notice confirming a breach and legally binding agreements to prevent future acts which can have reputational impact.

They are the financial and procedural consequences. Do not forget the human consequences. When raising awareness of sexual harassment it is easy to fall into legalese.  For example: While the worker’s perception of the conduct is key to whether something amounts to sexual harassment, consideration must also be given to whether it is reasonable for the conduct to have that effect. This is an objective test.

Make the communication easy to understand on what sexual harassment is, how to report it and how to handle allegations fairly for everyone involved. Listening to my podcast can help you do this. Keep the human in the loop.