The law is changing and it is time to get prepared.
The technical guidance issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in the form of the Equality Act 2010 Code of Practice (which is available here) is to be updated to include the new duty to take proactive action to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
I have prepared a FREE Business Toolkit to help businesses understand their new obligations and to assist them with taking proactive action in the form of risk assessment. You should now update your policies and procedures to reflect the change in the law and start to train your staff. It is important that employers do not rely solely on giving staff information, this is unlikely to be accepted as having taken appropriate and proportionate preventative steps.
The EHRC will have power to take “enforcement action” against employers that do not comply with the new duties.
The new Business Toolkit is available on the HR Helpline Client Portal and can be accessed here.