News
Our response to EHRC guidance on sexual harassment
With recent media attention about allegations of appalling and escalating cycles of abuse at Harrods, McDonald's, BBC and the CBI, the Worker Protection Act means employers can no longer ‘turn a blind eye’ to survivors who raise the alarm in the workplace.
We welcome the EHRC’s updated ‘Sexual Harassment guidance’, ahead of the Worker Protection Act coming into law in October, creating a new duty on all employers to take proactive steps to prevent sexual harassment of their workers.
In the aftermath of the allegations of appalling and escalating cycles of abuse at Harrods, McDonald’s, BBC and the CBI, the Worker Protection Act will mean employers can no longer ignore survivors who raise the alarm in the workplace.
We welcome clarification that employers do not need to wait for sexual harassment to be reported before they can act and for highlighting information to workers on their right to report employers who breach their duty to the EHRC for enforcement action.
We also are pleased the EHRC has adopted many of Rights of Women’s recommendations for the guidance, including expecting employers to:
- Investigate concerns where raised to ensure sexual harassment does not happen again
- Develop sexual harassment prevention ‘Action Plans’
- Carry out sexual harassment risk assessments
- Monitor whether measures are effective in preventing sexual harassment
However, the updated guidance is too employer-focused and relies heavily on policies and training and survivors’ reports without sufficient evidence to support these are effective measures in preventing sexual harassment.
The new EHRC guidance, while welcome, will not be enough to eliminate the extraordinary scale of sexual harassment and violence in the workplace. Nor will it end the discrimination, victimisation, hostility and disbelief that so many survivors of sexual harassment at work are met with by their employers.
Rights of Women are calling for:
1. A Statutory Code of Practice – including specialist advice on conducting investigations, which is trauma-informed and survivor-centred, so survivors need not be forced to have to litigate, when so few can self-fund legal action and discrimination legal aid is not available for legal representation in the Employment Tribunal.
2. A Health and Safety Approach – template risk assessments and management resources should be made available for employers to ensure a consistent approach from employers for protecting workers’ safety and dignity at work.
3. Issuing Fines – the EHRC needs powers to issue fines to employers who systemically fail to meet their duties under the Equality Act 2010 and the Worker Protection Act, to take the burden off survivors to secure accountability.
Rights of Women has developed specialist trauma-informed legal training on the Worker Protection Act 2024 and preventing sexual harassment in the workplace for employers, email [email protected] for enquires.