• Contact Us

New Report on Sexual Harassment - 10 Key Recommendations for Employers

on Friday, 06 April 2018.

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has published a new report, detailing how employers have failed to communicate to employees their policies on sexual harassment, to properly support victims and...

... to foster an environment in which victims feel comfortable complaining about the sexual harassment they have received.

Collecting Evidence

The report, entitled Turning the Tables: Ending Sexual Harassment at Work, has been based on responses to an online questionnaire completed between late 2017 and early 2018 by around 750 employees who had experienced or witnessed sexual harassment at work.

The report details some alarming trends in the way harassment is being handled in the workplace, including:

  • Nearly all of the people who had been sexually harassed were women.

  • Commonly, the perpetrator of the harassment was a senior colleague and respondents felt that the perpetrators were not challenged by HR as a result, or that they would suffer victimisation if they were to report the harassment.

  • Inexperienced managers often treated harassment as the victim's problem, including blaming female victims for the harassment by suggesting their clothing was provocative or they had flirted with the perpetrator.

  • Around half of the cases where incidents of sexual harassment were reported resulted in the employer taking no action.

What Should Employers Be Doing?

The report makes ten recommendations, based on the collected responses:

Changing Culture

  • The government should introduce a mandatory duty on employers to take reasonable steps to protect workers from harassment and victimisation in the workplace. Failure to do so will constitute a breach of the Equality Act.

  • The government should introduce a statutory code of practice on sexual harassment and harassment at work, and give tribunals the power to apply a 25% uplift on harassment compensation.

  • ACAS should develop targeted sexual harassment training.

  • The government should develop an online tool which addresses barriers and facilitates reporting.

Promoting Transparency

  • The government should collect and report data, and produce an action plan based on the collected data.

  • Employers should publish their sexual harassment policy on their external website.

  • The government should introduce legislation making contractual clauses preventing disclosure of future acts of discrimination, harassment or victimisation void.

Strengthening Protection

  • Extending the limitation period for bringing harassment claims to six months.

  • Introducing interim relief provisions for harassment claims to ease economic disparity between the employer and the victim.

  • Restoring previous protections for harassment victims, including the statutory questionnaire process and protection against third party harassment without the need to show two previous incidents.

Best Practice

Although the report is only advisory, it may prove useful in helping your organisation set its future strategy and policies to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.


For more information please contact Alice Reeve in our Employment law team on 0117 314 5383.

Leave a comment

You are commenting as guest.