Knowing how to prevent sexual harassment is crucial in enabling employers to fulfil their legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in their organisation.
To assist you in understanding the nature and extent of your legal duty and how to prevent sexual harassment at work, our expert HR and employment law specialists have prepared this short guide. For detailed advice tailored to your organisation, please contact one of our experts.
Call us now on 01491 598 600 or Click Here to Make An Enquiry and we will be delighted to help you.
What Is Sexual Harassment In The Workplace?
Sexual harassment is any unwanted sexual behaviour, whether physical, verbal, or non-verbal, that takes place within a working environment, including at social events.
Sexual harassment includes conduct that violates someone’s dignity or creates an environment that is hostile, offensive, intimidating, degrading, or humiliating for a person. The perpetrator’s intentions are irrelevant; if the behaviour has one of the effects listed, it may be deemed sexual harassment.
Examples of conduct that might be classed as sexual harassment include the following:
- Rape and sexual assault
- Sexual jokes
- Asking for sexual favours
- Making inappropriate comments about a person’s clothing, body, or general appearance
- Touching someone inappropriately
- Making suggestive gestures
- Making unwelcome sexual advances
What Are An Employer’s Duties In Relation To Sexual Harassment In Their Organisation?
New laws came into force in October 2024 introducing a mandatory duty on employers to proactively prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. The duty is to take ‘reasonable steps’, and what is ‘reasonable’ depends on a variety of factors, including the following:
- The size of your organisation
- The sector your organisation operates in
- The nature of your workplace
- The extent of your organisation’s resources
- Any specific risk factors inherent in your business
How To Prevent Sexual Harassment Within Your Organisation
It’s really important to develop a strategy for preventing sexual harassment that is appropriate to your business and workplace. That’s where expert HR advisors like ours can help. We’ll take the time to get to understand your business, identify any risk factors, and devise a practical course of action that satisfies your legal duty and accords with your commercial reality.
Examples of the types of measures businesses can take to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace include the following:
• Create An Inclusive, Respectful Culture
Prevention is better than cure, and developing a workplace in which people respect each other, and sexual harassment is frowned upon, can go a long way towards reducing the instances of sexual harassment within your business.
• Educate Your Staff
The term ‘sexual harassment’ is wide and covers a range of behaviours, from sexual assault to displaying inappropriate pictures. Ensuring your staff are aware of the types of conduct that may constitute sexual harassment is essential in preventing it.
• Risk Assess Your Business
Different types of businesses pose different types of risks for sexual harassment. For example, if you operate in a sector that involves people consuming alcohol, you need to consider the potential risks inherent in employees working alone in such an environment.
Once you have identified the risks, you need to consider how you can address them and decide on the measures that might be deemed reasonable in your circumstances.
• Implement Sexual Harassment Policies
If you don’t already have a policy governing how your organisation deals with instances of sexual harassment, you should create one as soon as possible. The policy should stress that you take a no-tolerance approach to the issue, and spell out the potential consequences for anyone who exhibits behaviour that could be classed as sexual harassment.
• Ensure Your Reporting Procedures Are Straightforward
Reporting any instances of sexual harassment must be straightforward and as stress free as possible. Your employees need to be encouraged to make a complaint or report any incidents they are witness to, and you must reassure them that they will not be victimised for coming forward.
• Ensure You Handle Complaints And Reports Effectively
It’s essential that any complaints and reports of sexual harassment are handled effectively. Those staff members tasked with addressing such complaints or reports should receive appropriate training and support.
• Support Anyone Who Experiences Sexual Harassment
You must ensure you properly support anyone who experiences sexual harassment in the workplace, with help from external agencies if necessary.
If you are unsure about how to prevent sexual harassment in your workplace and comply with your legal duty in this regard, our HR and employment law professionals are on hand to provide the support and guidance you need. We offer concise, pragmatic advice that ensures the steps you take are not only effective, but are also reasonable in the context of your business’s resources.
Call us now on 01491 598 600 or Click Here to Make An Enquiry and we will be delighted to help you.
