The introduction of the Worker Protection Act marks a significant shift in the legal landscape surrounding workplace sexual harassment in the UK.
Research we’ve carried out in our latest whitepaper suggests that many organisations may be underestimating the impact of this new legislation and overestimating their readiness to comply with its requirements.
In fact, 61% of respondents don’t feel as though their organisation is fully prepared to handle sexual harassment.
The key to success lies in moving beyond surface-level compliance to create fundamental cultural change, which we explore how organisations can achieve this below.
Worker Protection Act in summary
From October 2024, the Worker Protection Act places a new duty on employers to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment of employees.
Key Features of the Act
- Increased Scope – The Act seeks to protect workers beyond just the office, extending responsibility to cover employees working remotely and attending work-related events. Importantly, the Act applies to ALL employees irrespective of the organisation’s size or the working environment.
- Employer Responsibility – The Act places a new responsibility on employers to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment. This shifts the focus from businesses merely reacting to complaints to proactively preventing harassment.
- Increased Penalties – Employment tribunals will have the power to increase compensation awards by up to 25% if an employer is found to have breached this duty.
- Enforcement Action – The Equality and Human Rights Commission will have the power to take enforcement action, potentially leading to fines for non-compliant organisations.
Crucially if an employee brings a claim for multiple forms of harassment, for example based on age or sexual orientation, the 25% uplift in compensation will apply to all elements of the harassment claim. This could have a significant impact on the amount that could be awarded in harassment claims.
Barriers to change
Upon reading our whitepaper research findings, what became apparently clear was the disconnect between the perception of readiness and actual levels of preparedness for the introduction of the Worker Protection Act.
Some of the key statistics from our research:
- 93% said there are barriers to change in dealing with sexual harassment.
- 49% cited communication from employees as the biggest barrier.
- 41% of respondents say their organisation has no reporting pathway.
- 38% believe ingrained behaviours need to be challenged and addressed.
“It’s not happening in my company” seems to be the attitude of many businesses struggling with the reality of such behaviours in their workplace.
With the duty now being placed on employers to prevent sexual harassment at work, these are concerning statistics that organisations need to address quickly to comply.
How to comply with the new Worker Protection Act
The first step towards compliance is conducting a comprehensive culture review. You need to take an objective approach and assess problematic culture areas in your business.
You should reflect carefully on whether your culture empowers people to speak up and report issues when they happen, and a report is made, that the matter is dealt with seriously, holding individuals accountable.
Take advantage of our free Culture Clinic, a 20-minute session with our expert advisors who can objectively help you to diagnose your current culture and explore a culture management strategy with tailored advice that you can implement straight away.
How workplace reporting software assists with compliance
With the shift from responding to complaints to active prevention, implementing a workplace reporting platform such as Culture Shift can help organisations go a long way towards complying with the new Worker Protection Act.
Culture Shift’s platform offers anonymous reporting and case management tools to help organisations effectively prevent and respond to incidents of harassment and bullying. By providing data-driven insights and user-friendly reporting systems, we empower organisations to create safer, more inclusive workplaces.
By implementing a workplace reporting platform it demonstrates that:
- You have robust reporting procedures in place – Culture Shift’s platform gives you a clear and confidential reporting mechanism, providing an additional method for employees to report, rather than the traditional HR route. With underreporting of sexual harassment incidents identified as a challenge for businesses, our research shows that when you give people a way to speak up that feels comfortable, it encourages more people speak up giving a clearer picture of the behaviour and culture of your organisation.
- You value communication – open channels of communication builds trust between employees and senior leaders which form the foundations of a positive workplace culture. The more that employees can see you taking ownership of your culture, the more they will trust you and choose to report should they need to. The direct messaging function in our platform allows you to follow up and provide additional support when needed.
- You’ve established clear investigation protocols – from the moment that you receive a report, our case management system allows you to investigate allegations quickly and efficiently. Cases can be assigned to individual case workers to help you manage workload internally, whilst our AI powered Name Matching function, automatically links names throughout reports, helping you build clear evidence as part of an investigation.
- Your prevention efforts are documented – our platform creates a digitised paper trail to ensure every report is managed correctly with trackable workflows from case submission to closure. That way, nothing slips through the cracks, and you can fully evidence your prevention methods.
- Your training is targeted – under the new legislation, across the board training programmes will no longer be adequate. With Culture Shift you can drill down into trends across your organisation and really hone in on problematic areas, which allows you to target training needs. Because our analytics allow you to monitor trends over time, you’ll also be able to measure the return of your investment on training by comparing data pre and post initiatives.
- You are committed to improving your culture – organisations who implement a workplace reporting platform demonstrate they care about their employees’ experiences at work and take their culture seriously. Workplace culture is set from the top – actions of senior leaders’ cascade down and when you demonstrate you have a zero-tolerance policy of harassment, everyone becomes very clear on the types of behaviour that aren’t accepted, making workplaces a much nicer place to be part of.
The key to compliance is to be proactive and build a culture of continuous improvement. The above examples not only demonstrate compliance but a clear commitment to improving your overall culture and maintaining a respectful workplace. It’s no secret that organisations with good cultures reap the rewards when it comes to productivity, innovation and employee well-being.
Book a demo
If you’re interested in learning more about Culture Shift’s workplace reporting platform and how we can help you transform your culture.
Book a free demo with one of our experts.
