As we enter the holiday season, employers will want to be mindful of their new legal duty (effective from 26 October this year) to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. Here are three steps that employers can consider taking to help keep parties festive and harassment free.
1. Leading by example
Managers and supervisors are culture carriers. Their behaviour can set the tone. It’s essential that senior staff know the importance of modelling respectful behaviour and the need to address inappropriate conduct if it arises. You could send them a reminder of this, suggesting they in turn remind their teams.
2. Timely team reminders
Just as they might receive reminders about taking care of mobile phones and laptops when staff attend offsite events, you may want to ensure your non-manager employees are reminded about your commitment to a harassment-free environment and of your expectations for respectful behaviour. This could be done by line managers at team meetings for example.
3. Promote reporting mechanisms
Ensure you make well known the ways individuals can report inappropriate behaviour if they feel uncomfortable. You can consider re-publicising your policies along with details of your reporting channels.
These are suggestions that can be helpful for most businesses. However, recent guidance has made clear that employers are unlikely to be compliant with this new duty unless they have carried out a risk assessment to identify the specific steps that are reasonable for their business to take.
To discuss how we can help you comply with this new duty and for assistance with completing your risk assessment please contact your usual Littler contact. As training can be a key step in demonstrating compliance, please contact Natasha Adom to discuss training needs.
