Webinar
Raising the bar: what the new harassment reforms mean for employers
18 August 2026 | Webinar
Watch the webinar
Webinar
In October, further reforms under the Employment Rights Act 2025 will extend employers’ obligations to prevent harassment at work in two important ways.
First, the duty to prevent sexual harassment will be strengthened, requiring employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent the harassment of their workers whilst at work. Second, workers will gain a new right to bring a tribunal claim against their employer where they are harassed by a third party in the course of their work and the employer has failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent the harassment.
If you’re wondering what these changes will mean in practice and what your organisation should be doing ahead of October, you may find our online webinar discussion below a useful watch.
Key points
Adopting a panel format, we explored the practical challenges employers are likely to face and the steps organisations can take to prepare with confidence.
Alongside an overview of the reforms, we discussed:
- Understanding harassment – what behaviours can amount to harassment (and which may not).
- Risk assessments – why they matter, what they should cover, how to approach them and what to record.
- ‘All’ reasonable steps – what this change might mean in practice, how the strengthened duty raises the bar, example steps and how to evidence compliance.
- Third-party harassment – identifying and managing risk in customer, supplier and other third-party interactions, exploring the potential for collaboration with key third-party relationships and understanding what this new worker protection meant for organisations acting as a third party.
- NDAs and confidentiality – what might change in 2027.
Speakers
Katherine Flower Partner View profile
Jamie Cameron Director View profile
Kate Redshaw Head of Practice Development View profile
Elizabeth Buckley Associate View profile
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