Preventing Sexual Harassment in the Workplace - what the new law means for employers

The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 came into effect on October 26, 2024, and requires employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment.  This includes harassment from other employees, customers, or clients, and also harassment that occurs on social media. 

The main steps every employer is expected to take are:

• Conducting a risk assessment. 

• Having a robust policy in place – that is updated at least once a year.

• Putting in place meaningful training for managers - at least once a year and immediately for all new managers.

• An awareness programme for employees – so that they know what is not acceptable, from day one (so part of their induction).

• A reporting system – that also allows for anonymous complaints.

• A process by which all complaints are treated seriously, investigated (which requires further training for managers/approved investigators) and actioned.

• A support system for those who need it.

Further guidance can be found here

Planned Changes to Employment Law

Following the Labour Government’s first King’s Speech on 17 July 2024, the newly formed Government promised two employment-related bills:

• An Employment Rights Bill

• A draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill

  
  

The new Government has promised to introduce its Employment Rights Bill within the first one hundred days (somewhere between 12 and 25 October 2024). 

According to the briefing notes, the Employment Rights Bill will:

• Ban exploitative zero-hours contracts.

• End "fire and rehire" and "fire and replace".

• Make parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal a day one right for all workers (subject to probationary periods to allow employers to assess new hires).

• Remove the lower earnings limit and the waiting period for Statutory Sick Pay. 

• Make flexible working the default from day one for all workers.

• Strengthen protections for new mothers, making it unlawful to dismiss a woman who has had a baby for six months after her return to work, other than in exceptional circumstances.

• Establish a Fair Work Agency to strengthen enforcement of workplace rights.

• Update trade union legislation, removing restrictions on trade union activity.

  
  
  
  

The draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill

According to the briefing notes, the Government intends to “tackle inequality for ethnic minority and disabled people” by:

• Enshrining in law the full right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people.

• Introducing mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for large employers (those with 250+ employees).

Additional implications for employers

In the future, the Government intends to introduce a “genuine living wage”, including removing what it describes as “discriminatory age bands”.

What happens next?

We will need to wait and see the draft legislation itself in order to fully understand what changes are being introduced, and how the reforms might work in practice.

The introduction of a bill is the first step in a process which includes a number of stages. This first step of the process is expected to happen somewhere between 12 and 25 October 2024.

Fire and Re-hire – what you need to know.

The statutory Code of Practice on dismissal and re-engagement came into force last month on 18th July.

If a contract change has not been agreed between an employer and its employee(s) then the employer might propose to introduce the change by dismissing and rehiring employee(s). This is known as 'fire and rehire' or 'dismissal and re-engagement'.

This is where an employer gives its employees notice that they propose to:

• dismiss employees from their existing contract

• offer to rehire them on new terms

Employers need to be aware that they should only do this as a last resort. They should follow the new Code of Practice on dismissal and re-engagement on GOV.UK

The new code of practice aims to tackle the use of 'fire and rehire' as a negotiation tactic to pressurise employees and sets out what employers must do in this situation.  

In future, the courts and employment tribunals will take the Code into account when considering relevant cases. This will include on unfair dismissal claims where the employer should have followed the Code.

Employment tribunals will have the power to apply an uplift of up to 25% of an employee’s compensation if an employer unreasonably fails to comply with the Code.

The new Code clarifies how employers should behave when seeking to change employees’ terms and conditions, aiming to ensure employees are properly consulted and treated fairly.

Employers will now also need to explore alternatives to dismissal and re-engagement and have meaningful discussions with employees or trade unions to reach an agreed outcome.

The Code can be found here