What You Need to Know About the Worker Protection Act

The Worker Protection Act (2024) is an amendment to the existing Equality Act 2010. The Equality Act protects all workers against discrimination in the workplace, and the 2024 Worker Protection Act will add to that existing legislation, requiring employers to take steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees.

Here’s your chance to learn more about The Worker Protection Act, and how it will affect your business.

It Is the Employer’s Duty to Prevent Sexual Harassment

With the amendment, “Employer must take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees”, but what does that mean? What are reasonable steps?

Unfortunately, there are no specifics given about what qualifies for reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment.

While there is no official documentation about what qualifies for reasonable prevention and what does not, it is possible to look at existing legislation and recommendations from other organizations. If we look at The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), The Fawcett Society, and similar organizations, we can assume that “reasonable steps” will include mandatory sexual harassment training for all employees and additional training for HR professionals to help in reporting and identifying harassment and working with victims of sexual harassment in the workplace.

What Do Reasonable Steps Look Like?

There are no exact guidelines or requirements that employers must take to demonstrate you’ve taken reasonable steps to prevent harassment. What is reasonable will vary for different employers and will depend on factors including the size and resources available to the employer, the working environment, and the sector the employer operates. 

To help protect your employees and provide reasonable steps to prevent workplace harassment, here are a few suggestions to follow to start improving your workplace.

• Perform a Risk Assessment
  It’s difficult to take reasonable steps in protecting your employees from harassment if you are unaware of the potential risks there are to your employees. A few examples of factors that can be taken into consideration when conducting a risk assessment include workplace culture, disrespectful behavior, gendered power imbalances, lone or isolated working conditions, and the absence of policies or procedures to prevent or respond to sexual harassment.
  
  Risks that only affect one job role or one worker must still be considered and addressed.
  
• Review Your Existing Policies
  Hopefully, your workplace already has policies and practices to prevent sexual harassment. If you do not, now is the time to implement them. Key policies should include (but are not limited to) training, identification, and support of victims.
  
  If you already have sexual harassment policies, now is the time to update them to provide comprehensive coverage for all people. Remember to provide inclusive and comprehensive coverage because everyone can be a victim of sexual harassment.
  
• Improve Reporting and Identifying Processes
  If one of your employees was sexually harassed,  how is it reported? Who can report it? How soon is it addressed? Now is the time to look at your existing processes and make sure they are updated to provide the most support for your employees to help protect them against sexual harassment.
  
  Sexual harassment in the workplace should not only be reported by the victim. Harassment should be identified and reported by everyone. Reporting sexual harassment should be easy, with multiple options of who to report to, and no complicated bureaucracy or paperwork to make the complaint. By forcing employees to speak with an unfamiliar HR representative or requiring multiple surveys and forms to be filled out, you are setting up barriers for your employees to report.
  
• Review and Update Existing Training
  Sexual harassment training isn’t a silver bullet. They aren’t going to fix everything, but they can provide a solid groundwork for helping your employees identify problems in their own actions as well as the actions of those around them.
  
  When updating your training, be mindful of the topic and don’t make light of the situation. Your sexual harassment training should not be silly or sarcastic
  
• Refresh Your Company’s Culture
  The environment and culture of your company play a massive role in how your employees view and react to sexual harassment. When employees feel like harassment is accepted or that reports of harassment are undervalued and ignored, they are less likely to report it. Changing your company’s culture takes time, so now is the best time to start making a difference.

Make HR Simple with IRIS Global Workforce Management

IRIS Global Workforce Management can help manage your HR needs. We ensure your business is compliant with all regulations, including The Worker Protection Act. Speak to one of our specialists today and discover how IRIS can simplify your compliance needs.