Sexual Harassment: The Laws are Changing
Oct 08, 2024
Any idea what’s happening on the 26th of October 2024?
If you don’t, then you need to keep reading.
There’s going to be a fundamental shift in the UK workplace laws around sexual harassment, and you really need to be prepared for them.
It’s easy to read headlines about the new sexual harassment workplace legislation coming in and assume that you’ve got nothing to worry about.
After all, you personally have no intention of harassing anyone, right?
However, the new laws aren’t just about your own personal behaviour...
The new laws focus on the extent to which you’ve put steps in place to moderate your employees’ behaviour and protect your team for sexual harassment.
It’s no longer enough just to have a few policies and procedures around about what you’ll do if there’s an allegation of sexual harassment.
If an employee takes you to tribunal now, the judge will want to know what the employer (that’s you!) did to prevent the alleged harassment happening in the first place.
And if the answer’s, “Not a lot”, you can expect the amount they award the victim to be 25% higher – the only offence where a judge can add a discretionary uplift, other than unfair dismissal.
Simply put, if you don’t want to fork out an eyewatering sum of money because of the actions of one of your employees, you need to pay attention to these changes AND do something about them.
If you need support and advice in ensuring your policies are watertight, reach out to us.
Do you need help with your people management?
Whether you’ve got a specific HR query, you need your HR foundations in place, or you’re looking to build on those foundations and create a team that can function without you, we’d love to talk about how we can help you make it happen.
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