The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 means that from 26 October 2024, all employers will be under a new obligation to take “reasonable steps” to prevent the sexual harassment of employees at work.
What’s changing?
Employees already have a right not to suffer sexual harassment at work and can bring an employment tribunal claim as a result. The Act introduces a new proactive duty on all employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment from happening in the first place. This means that employers must be able to clearly evidence the specific steps they’ve taken (and continue to take) to protect employees from sexual harassment.
New financial consequences
A breach of this new duty gives tribunals the power to apply an uplift of 25% on any compensation awarded in successful claims. Compensation for harassment claims is already uncapped, so compensation uplifts could have potentially huge financial consequences for employers if they’re found to have breached the new duty.
In our next update, we’ll bring to life some recent employment tribunal cases to show just how significant the new compensation uplift could be moving forward.
Click here to book a demo of our ‘Preventing sexual harassment’ eLearning course – training is a key way for employers to demonstrate they’re taking reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment at work.
