When employers think about workplace harassment, they often picture a serious incident, a formal grievance or an employment tribunal claim, but these things start much smaller and are often less obvious:
A junior employee stops contributing in meetings when a particular customer is present.
A manager overhears comments that make them uneasy but assumes somebody else will deal with it.
An employee feels uncomfortable about a situation but decides it is easier to stay quiet than raise a complaint.
These are the moments that matter.
Recent changes to the law mean employers are expected to do more than react when something goes wrong. The focus is increasingly on what steps have been taken to prevent harassment from happening in the first place.
A shift from compliance to prevention
Many organisations approach harassment as a compliance exercise.
Do we have a policy?
Have people completed training?
Is there a reporting process?
Whilst these things remain important, the law expects organisations to go further. The legal preventative duty now requires employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. Employers may also be liable where workers are harassed by customers, clients, suppliers or other third parties and reasonable preventative measures have not been taken.
The question is no longer: "Do we have the right documents in place?"
It is now: "Have we genuinely identified our risks and taken meaningful steps to reduce them?"
Where are your risks?
Most organisations already have a good idea where problems are most likely to arise, and there are some common risk areas:
Client-facing roles
Customer interactions
Networking events and conferences
Remote and hybrid working environments
Team messaging platforms
Power imbalances between senior and junior employees
Relationships with contractors, suppliers and consultants
These risks will exist in most organisations, and it is impossible to completely eradicate all risk. however, employers must now ensure they have identified the risks in their business, assessed them and taken reasonable action to reduce them .
Policies don’t change behaviour
Over the last year, many employers have reviewed and updated workplace policies, including those relating to harassment.
This is, of course, a sensible starting point, but changing policies alone doesn’t change culture.
Employees need to understand what acceptable behaviour looks like in practice in their organisation, managers need confidence to identify and challenge issues early, and leaders need to model the standards they expect others to follow.
Most importantly, people need to trust that concerns will be taken seriously if they speak up.
In my experience, workplace problems often escalate not because there was no policy, but because concerns were spotted early but nobody felt confident enough to tackle them.
The impact of management
If I were assessing an organisation's readiness under the new regime, one of my first questions would be: How confident are your managers in handling difficult conversations?
Managers are often the first people to hear concerns, notice warning signs or receive informal complaints, yet most organisations don’t invest in training to help managers deal with those situations.
You don’t need your managers to be experts in HR or employment law, but they do need to know how to challenge inappropriate behaviour, respond to concerns appropriately and recognise when additional support is required.
In my opinion, investing in manager capability is the most effective step an organisation can take to reduce risk.
This is a leadership issue
The prevention of harassment is not an HR issue. Like health and safety, data protection or cybersecurity, it is ultimately a leadership issue.
Boards and senior leadership teams should understand:
Where the key risks sit within the organisation
Whether reporting routes are trusted
Whether managers are equipped to deal with concerns
Whether existing measures are achieving the intended outcome
It’s important not to forget that, whilst there is a legal obligation to comply with here, the goal of preventative action is not to defend tribunal claims, it’s to create a working environment in which inappropriate behaviour is less likely to occur in the first place.
What should you be doing now?
At a minimum, you should:
Review harassment and dignity at work policies
Carry out and document harassment risk assessments
Consider risks arising from customers, clients and other third parties
Ensure reporting routes are clear and trusted
Provide meaningful employee training
Equip managers to handle concerns confidently
Review how complaints are managed and escalated
Regularly assess whether existing measures are effective
Most importantly, ask whether the steps being taken are changing behaviour or simply demonstrating compliance.
The key takeaway
The organisations best placed to navigate these changes will not necessarily be the ones with the longest policies or the most detailed training records.
They will be the organisations that understand where their risks lie, support their managers, encourage people to speak up and take action before issues escalate. It will be those organisations that remember the goal is to prevent harassment of their staff, not just comply with a legal obligation.
New Road helps organisations assess workplace culture, train managers to handle difficult conversations confidently and reduce employment law risk before problems escalate.
This post provides general information for business owners, not legal advice, and you should always take advice on your specific situation before acting.
