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The previous duty meant employers had to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment however, this has now been extended meaning employers must now ‘all reasonable steps’.
Furthermore, it also now means employers must not permit third parties to harass staff. This means anyone employees have contact with such as customers, delivery drivers, entertainers such as musicians and contractors.
The law covers harassment related to protected characteristics of age, gender reassignment, disability, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation, under the Equality Act.
Extending policies
HR and employment law experts Citation laid out steps operators should have in place for the new rules.
One was to revisit sexual harassment risk assessments and question whether they reflect all reasonable steps.
An additional piece of advice was to extend anti-harassment policies and training to cover harassment by customers, clients and other third parties that aren’t colleagues.
This can also include naming third parties explicitly in policies, training staff to report incidents involving customers or clients and provide managers with clear processes for reporting it.
The changes are particularly pertinent for hospitality employers with staff interactions with people outside the business.
Employee protection
This means operators will need to consider how they protect employees during these interactions with customers and other third parties as well as ensuring managers understand how allegations should be handled when an incident is reported.
Failure to comply can result in an employment tribunal.
Citation director of employment law Gil McAteer said: “Reasonable steps and all reasonable steps sound similar but they’re judged very differently by a tribunal.
“All reasonable steps means being able to show you look at every option that was open to you, not just the ones you happened to already have in place.
“Add third-party harassment into the mix and any business with customer-facing staff needs to think about protection that goes beyond internal HR policy.”
The Employment Rights Bill, which this law comes under, was introduced to parliament in October 2024.
