{"id":11032,"date":"2025-04-03T21:32:01","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T21:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brightmine.com\/uk\/?post_type=resources&p=11032"},"modified":"2026-07-22T09:23:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:23:38","slug":"a-turning-point-for-workplace-harassment","status":"publish","type":"resources","link":"https:\/\/www.brightmine.com\/uk\/resources\/hr-compliance\/bullying-harassment\/a-turning-point-for-workplace-harassment\/","title":{"rendered":"A turning point for workplace harassment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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by Robert Shore<\/strong>, HR Market Insights Editor at Brightmine<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help HR leaders develop their strategies to tackle the practical and cultural challenges of recent and upcoming additions to anti-harassment legislation, Brightmine<\/a> and HR Grapevine convened a roundtable discussion. During the event, industry professionals shared the key issues they currently encounter in dealing with workplace harassment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 26 October 2024, employers have had a specific duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of workers in the course of their employment. As part of its Employment Rights Bill, the Government is now proposing to add the word “all” before “reasonable steps” in respect of this positive duty, as well as reintroducing employer liability for third-party harassment. When the Bill passes into law, employers will be liable if a third party such as a client, customer, contractor or supplier harasses an employee during the course of their employment and the employer has failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent this from happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“For us, fostering psychological safety is key. That’s why we prioritised making training easily accessible to our entire workforce through our training platform. We invested in a tailored learning approach to ensure relevance to our business, designing interactive, bite-sized sessions based on real-life scenarios and making participation mandatory for all. By equipping our team members with the right knowledge and confidence, we’re fostering a culture where people feel safe speaking up, empowered to do the right thing, and able to address issues before they escalate.”<\/p>– Shannon Sheekey, HR Advisor, Clermont Hotel Group<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The session began with a question\u2014”Who feels confident in their organisation’s current strategies to prevent harassment?” The muted response suggested that organisations felt there was still significant work to be done in this area. In the first place, some attendees suggested that it was often difficult to get people to understand what harassment is. One attendee said they used scenarios to show what a “minimal” incident might look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, when talking about the complexity of conducting risk assessments, participants observed that it is extremely challenging to think through every possible scenario in which employees\u2014variously frontline, remote and office-based, perhaps dealing with third parties online or face to face\u2014might find themselves in the course of their duties. Added to this, with so much legislative change on the horizon thanks to the Employment Rights Bill, some HR departments feared “death by training”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The discussion highlighted other key themes, such as the challenges presented by third-party harassment, the importance of transparency, and the need for improved collection and sharing of data. This exchange of experiences and best practices illuminated some of the steps that organisations are taking to move towards harassment-free workplaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some of the key takeaways from the discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Risk assessments<\/h2>\n\n\n\n