A Step-by-Step Guide for HR
It’s now just under one month until the Worker Protection Act enters into force.
The Act will introduce the new proactive duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment.
If you haven’t done so already, you should urgently be putting measures in place to help your organisation become harassment-free.
What is the Worker Protection Act and what changes do you need to be aware of?
Effective from 26th October 2024, this Worker Protection Act introduces a legal obligation for employers to take proactive, preventative steps to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace.
But here’s the critical question: do you know what “reasonable steps” really mean under the new law?
Without the proper measures in place, your organisation faces increased risks—tribunal actions, costly payouts, and a rise in grievances or disciplinary actions.
Why conduct an internal audit?
This internal audit, comprising five key questions to ask, helps to ensure that your company’s current policies and processes align with the updated Worker Protection Act, allowing you to safeguard against legal challenges, fines, and reputational damage.
But it’s not just about risk mitigation; this is an opportunity to cultivate a culture that prioritises respect and safety, ultimately boosting employee morale and engagement.
- Are you auditing your current approach to sexual harassment?
- Are you identifying areas of risk strengthening reporting processes?
- And, crucially, are you getting ready to communicate clear messages about zero-tolerance across the organisation?
These clear processes, robust systems and strong support from senior leadership are essential early steps. Steps we cover in our latest webinar on the Worker Protection Act and its changes.
After structure, process and systems comes people
Once you’re clear about the structures, processes and systems, the next step is to focus on the people.
If sexual harassment is to be prevented and become a thing of the past, it’s your people who will make this happen. But what do they need to know?
- Do managers recognise how to nip poor behaviour in the bud?
- Do team members realise what sexual harassment looks like and how to respond if they encounter it?
- Are team leaders empowered to create a respectful environment in which harassment is less likely to happen?
- Do the People Team know how to handle unsupportive managers?
Over the coming weeks you will need to make decisions about how best to support the people in your organisation and develop their skills and confidence in this vital area of workplace life.
5 Key Questions to Help Audit your Organisation’s Approach
To help you at this stage, we’ve identified the five key questions you should be asking to determine the best approach for your organisation:
Question 1: What’s the culture like in your organisation?
The approach you take to preventing sexual harassment will depend on your organisation’s history and context. In its guidance on the Worker Protection Act, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has made it clear that how an employer prevents sexual harassment will depend on the nature of the organisation and its work.
What have you learned about cases of sexual harassment within your organisation (if any) and people’s attitudes towards the issue?
Do you feel teams need a strong message about the basics or are they already well-informed and needing a refresher?
Does your organisation have a culture in which people are confident to feed back and speak out or do these skills need developing?
Are you in an industry where sexual harassment is more likely to happen and therefore a stronger and more robust training approach is needed?
Being able to assess and articulate your current culture will help to shape your understanding of your people’s developmental needs.
Question 2: What are your key areas of risk?
You can’t do everything so it’s important to prioritise. The EHRC advise that employers should review past incidents of sexual harassment. This can be your starting point to understand how people may need to be trained.
What are the circumstances in which sexual harassment has already played out and how effectively was this dealt with? What were the lessons learned? The EHRC also makes clear that organisations should identify the risks.
Just because harassment hasn’t been reported before doesn’t mean there is no risk. What are the key situations in which sexual harassment could occur and which groups could be most at risk? For example, do you have people who work unattended, who are often dealing with external parties or where there are power imbalances? Is there a culture of banter in a particular team or a history of weak management?
Have there been near-misses which could potentially be sexual harassment claims in the future? Being able to answer these questions will help you to shape the focus of your training and engagement, in particular the scenarios you wish your people to be able to manage.
Question 3: What would you like people at each level to be able to do?
Your workforce may be varied and whilst you may have some standard expectations of every person (for example to understand sexual harassment and not to behave in this way) people in different roles and at different levels may have different needs.
Depending on what you have learned about culture and risk, you may wish to identify the support and training needed at each level. For example:
- Do senior leaders need clear briefings on their legal responsibilities and how they can set a clear example for the whole organisation?
- Do managers need practical training in how to foster a positive atmosphere in their team, nip issues in the bud and play their role in a formal process?
- Do team members need to know how they can seek support, speak out for others or deal with a contractor who makes inappropriate comments?
If everyone in your organisation is to play their part in preventing sexual harassment, you will need to determine the specifics of how you would like them to behave and the support they need to do it.
Question 4: What will have the greatest impact for your people?
Once you have determined what you would like training and engagement to achieve, you should consider what will have the greatest impact.
You know your people should be aiming to create opportunities for them to learn that will be relatable, practical, easy to engage with and which take their busy roles into account.
You might wish to ask questions such as:
- What will bring this subject to life for our people? Do we need practical scenarios, real-life case studies and a walk through our processes? Do we need to find out more about the day-to-day challenges that people face and address these head-on?
- How much time do people have and how are they best engaged? It may not be possible to take a staff member off the shop floor for a whole day or to summon everyone to a central location if people work remotely. Perhaps people relate better to bitesize sessions, blended learning or highly practical workshops.
- How do you think people will react to this subject? Are people likely to be affronted that they are being trained on preventing sexual harassment, be scared to speak up or not take this seriously? Answering these questions can help you to determine the style and tone of any training or engagement you use.
Question 5: How will you make this project sustainable?
It’s great when people enjoy a training course or join in with an information event and leave with a buzz. But can you be confident that people will still remember how to behave in six months time?
If you are going to invest time and money in an intervention such as training, you will need to ask yourself (or seek advice) on how this can be made sustainable.
You may need to consider how you can keep people’s knowledge refreshed with follow-up sessions, whether you provide practical checklists and how-to guides or how you can use away days and newsletters to keep the concept of preventing sexual harassment alive.
You may also need to identify how you can train internal trainers to take the learning forward and how you share this knowledge with new joiners.
Summary and conclusion
It’s estimated that sexual harassment is experienced by 40% of women in the workforce during their careers. In 79% of cases, women do not report this behaviour.
But the statistics may be higher, largely impacted by reporting issues and a lack of confidence in the ability of or motivation of the employer to deal with cases.
The changes to the Worker Protection Act and the duty from you, the employer, goes beyond merely responding to complaints; employers must actively work to create a safe and respectful environment where harassment is unlikely to occur.
If you need help with auditing your current processes or are interested in training to help your organisation meet reasonable steps and processes, learn more about our deep dive training.
