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Legal updates
October will see the introduction of important additional protections against harassment as a result of reforms contained in the Employment Rights Act 2025. If you’re an employer, then now is the time to review what you already do to prevent and respond to complaints of harassment as well as to identify where improvements may be needed and decide what further steps will be required to comply with the new law.
The October reforms change two aspects of the law:
The existing duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment, introduced in October 2024, will be strengthened so that employers will need to take “all” reasonable steps to prevent their workers from being sexually harassed whilst working, rather than “reasonable steps” as the law currently stands.
This seemingly small change in terminology potentially raises the bar significantly for employers. Regulations setting out what will amount to “reasonable steps” are expected in 2027, but those steps are likely to be a minimum baseline; each employer will still need to consider what additional steps are reasonable in light of its own working environment and risk profile.
This reform means that workers will be able to bring a claim in the employment tribunal against their employer where they have been harassed by a third party in the course of their employment and the employer has not taken all reasonable steps to prevent it.
Importantly, what is meant by “third parties” is wide-ranging and can include customers, clients, suppliers, contractors, visitors to the workplace and members of the public. Also, the protection from third party harassment will extend to all protected characteristics, not just sexual harassment.
This should be a key area of focus for many employers as almost all workers will have some interaction with third parties whilst at work.
Although the two reforms are distinct, the shared theme for employers looking to reduce risk is prevention. The direction of travel with these further reforms continues towards encouraging employers to think proactively about how incidents of harassment can be prevented before they happen, rather than being reactive and focusing only on what happens after a concern has been raised.
Alongside ensuring that you have effective reporting mechanisms in place and that any complaints of harassment are effectively managed, you should also be carefully auditing risk across the business to identify any additional steps they should be taking (not least in light of the requirement to take all reasonable steps) to prevent the harassment from arising.
This should include revisiting your risk assessment to identify whether there are additional (reasonable) steps that could be taken and making sure any preventative steps (alongside being reasonable) are practical, targeted to address the particular risk and capable of being evidenced. The aim being to embed prevention into day-to-day working practices (and being able to demonstrate that), rather than simply something that is referenced in policies or addressed by one-off training sessions.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s recently published research into workplace harassment provides important practical insights for employers (Our research into workplace harassment | EHRC). Although the research is framed around the duty to prevent sexual harassment, its practical insights on policy design, reporting routes, training, communication and implementation are also relevant when organisations are assessing and managing third party harassment risk.
In practical terms, while training and formal policies are essential, they are not enough on their own. The research reinforces that prevention needs to be active, embedded, consistently implemented, regularly reviewed, and supported by training and clear communication.
Even whilst the sun beats down on us, we know that October is not far away, so employers keen to ensure compliance should be taking action now. Use this time to review, update and, where needed, strengthen your organisation’s approach to preventing harassment by:
Leading by example: consider how senior leaders and other stakeholders can visibly and proactively support and reinforce the prevention message.
Reviewing, updating or carrying out anti-harassment risk assessments: risk assessments have been a key part of demonstrating compliance with the duty to prevent sexual harassment since October 2024, but organisations will be at different stages. Even if you have already carried out your risk assessment, it is important that this is reviewed and updated on a regular basis. Given the upcoming requirement for “all” reasonable steps, now is the time to be doing this.
If you have not yet carried out a formal risk assessment to identify both where risk may arise and the steps you need to put in place to prevent harassment, use this lead-in period to do so. Not only is this important to prevent instances of harassment, but it will also form a critical part of any defence should a claim of harassment be brought. You may well need to involve other parts of the business to help with this – line managers, health and safety, IT and technology, legal and procurement teams are all likely to need to be involved.
In either case, when completing your risk assessment, specific consideration should be given to the higher “all reasonable steps” standard and to preventing third party harassment (across all protected characteristics). When identifying areas of risk, you should consider individual roles, sites, working patterns, events, off-site work, lone working, senior or junior power dynamics, and situations where the organisation has less direct control over the conduct of others.
Making sure reporting routes are visible and trusted: a lack of reports does not necessarily mean there is no issue. It may indicate that workers do not know how to raise concerns, do not feel safe doing so, or do not trust that concerns will be taken seriously. Check whether reporting routes are accessible to all, well understood, and trusted across the workforce, including those who are remote, junior, temporary or working unsociable hours, and consider whether any additional support may be needed where the alleged harasser is a client, customer or other third party.
Stress-testing, reviewing and updating policies and standards: consider whether policies sufficiently explain what behaviour is unacceptable, cover both harassment by other workers and third party harassment, and are supported by clear expectations for workers, managers, and third parties, with updates made where needed.
Refreshing manager training and practical guidance: refresh training to reflect the upcoming reforms. Training should give managers practical guidance on how to recognise potential risks, respond appropriately to disclosures, escalate concerns, record incidents, take protective action and follow up consistently.
Developing or strengthening third party controls: whilst the threshold for employers to demonstrate that they have taken “all reasonable steps” to prevent third party harassment is likely to be lower (on the basis that employers have less control over what third parties may do), employers will need to consider all interactions their staff have with third parties to identify what steps may need to be put in place. For example, consider whether changes are needed to client, customer or supplier communications, visitor standards, contractual wording (including supplier contracts and terms of business), codes of conduct and event protocols, and whether escalation routes and/or an agreed position on information sharing and cooperation between the parties in the event of a complaint, need to be introduced, updated or made more visible where third party behaviour creates a risk.
Show your workings! keep records of risk assessments and reviews, policy updates, training, communications, reports, outcomes, and any other steps taken to protect workers. This is good practice in any event, but very important as this will be needed if a claim is brought.
Monitoring and review: use complaints, near misses, staff surveys, exit interviews and other relevant data to understand whether prevention measures are working or whether further action is needed.
With the October reforms now firmly on the horizon, the key message is not to wait. For some organisations, the immediate priority will be checking what is already in place, including risk assessments, policies, training, and reporting routes, to make sure those measures remain effective and can be evidenced. For others, more work may be needed to identify additional risk areas and put in place further practical steps to meet the higher “all reasonable steps” standard. Either way, you should use the time before October to review, strengthen and document your organisation’s approach, so you are well prepared when the new reforms come into force.
If you would like support with your risk assessments or preparing for the anti-harassment reforms more generally, please contact Katherine Flower or Elizabeth Buckley in our Employment team.
The UK’s Employment Rights Act has been hailed by the government as ‘the biggest upgrade to rights at work in a generation’. Visit our hub to find out more about all the key changes and to stay up to date on the latest developments.
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