Preventing Discrimination and Harassment – New Legislation effective from October 2024

Recently someone asked me about the workshops that I run and I mentioned the one on Preventing Discrimination, bullying and harassment.

I have many years of experience in HR and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion within large global organisations. And now I support smaller ones that don’t have a team of people to handle those topics.

So if that’s your kind of organisation, read on!

Did you know that new legislation effective from October 2024 mandates a duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment of their employees at work?

This is an amendment to the Equality Act 2010. That law protects people against discrimination at work, i.e. treating someone less favourably than someone else, because of factors relating to age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

That might include:

• excluding someone from opportunities or benefits
• making it harder for someone to do their job
• causing someone emotional distress
• causing someone financial loss

It can still be discrimination even if the less favourable treatment was not intended.

The tone of this new legislation is a little different.

It’s not just about making sure you’ve got a policy in place (although I can help with that) or running some training for your managers (I can help with that too). It’s about taking action to PREVENT sexual harassment. Having those things in place is a good start but it won’t be enough. You’ll need to be able to demonstrate that your organisation takes active actions to prevent harassment from occurring.

This measure is also wide-ranging in that it also applies to contractors, self-employed people and job applicants, not just your own employees.

Examples of sexual harassment:

• Lewd or abusive comments, comments of a sexual nature such as regarding an individual’s appearance or body
• Unwelcome touching of a sexual nature
• Displaying sexually suggestive or sexually offensive writing or material
• Asking questions of a sexual nature
• Sexual propositions or advances

So here’s a checklist. Do you have it in place…?

• Policies against bullying and Harassment that define unacceptable behaviour, and that define how employees can report issues
• Training for staff and leaders?
• Leaders with a good understanding of the issue who can create the climate to avoid harassment and encourage employees to speak up?
• An assessment of the risk within your own organisation?
• Reporting mechanisms for individuals to report issues, together with a process to ensure follow-up?

Clearly, this needs to be set up to be appropriate for your organisation. Are you the kind of organisation that organises after-work drinks? Are you the kind of organisation that interacts with customers? Do you have playful banter within your workplace; do you know when that steps over the line into the unacceptable according to the law? Do your employees work shifts? There are many variables that make your organisation unique.

You’ll want to ensure that you’re creating processes and systems that work for your specific organisation. So you’ll want to work with someone who is focused on what makes a business successful, not just telling you what the new law says.

And it’s worth noting that implementing the elements of this checklist will be a good start, but it will take more time to have an impact.

So if you need help in implementing any of these topics in a way that fits your organisation, don’t delay; please contact me.