New legislation is to be introduced later this year regarding sexual harassment in the workplace. From 26 October 2024, the Worker Protection Act 2023 will place employers under an additional duty to take reasonable steps to protect employees from harassment. Ahead of the new legislation, the Equality and Human Rights Commission will publish a statutory Code of Practice on the steps employers are expected to take to comply with this new duty.
To comply with this new duty, employers will need to start by conducting a risk analysis of sexual harassment in their workplace, outline actions to mitigate or eliminate risks, develop robust reporting, investigation and response processes and monitor, and implement improvements.
Employers should keep a very close eye on this as the statutory Code will set the expectation of them going forward and is likely to be a very significant development in this area