Book a place on our latest webinar to find out more about how the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s technical guidance on harassment at work is costing the UK’s big employers.
During this webinar, we will discuss the technical guidance and in what ways you need to act now, to ensure that not meeting the requirements doesn’t cost your business in the future.
Click here to claim your free place.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) released some technical guidance in January 2020 outlining what employers need to do to tackle harassment and sexual harassment in the workplace. It set out what employers must do to protect their employers under their duty of care and stated that they would be legally liable for harassment in the workplace.
Now, some months later, we’re seeing high profile cases of organisations not tackling harassment in the workplace which is costing some of the UK’s largest employers hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Cases like Highways England who failed to protect someone from sexual harassment and unfair dismissal, Sainsbury’s who were found liable for sexual harassment against a member of staff, and most recently, DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) who did not keep employees safe from age and racial harassment and discrimination.
In all three of these cases, the organisations have willingly signed a legal agreement with the EHRC, known as a Section 23 agreement, which binds them taking certain measures to protect staff from harassment, and prevent employees from committing it. This shows a clear commitment from EHRC, who reached out to all of these organisations to work with them and implement change, to tackling harassment and holding employers to account.
These high profile cases are a reflection of the ever-increasing numbers of tribunal cases being brought and the increasing pressure for employers to take a proactive and preventative approach to stop it escalating to this point. And, if you don’t the right steps there are organisations like EHRC who can and will enforce measures.
During this webinar, we’ll be discussing the technical guidance and in what ways you need to act now, to ensure that not meeting the requirements doesn’t cost your business in the future.
Our guest speaker is Caroline Prosser.
Caroline is a Legal Director at Hill Dickinson LLP. She specialises in all aspects of employment law and education law. She also specialises in investigations for corporate clients, educational institutions and other public bodies.
Her experience in this area includes being appointed as the external expert for the BBC on its bullying and harassment cases and being appointed to go into companies to audit HR practices and then change them.
Caroline will go into the definition and examples of harassment, the effect of harassment in the workplace and your responsibilities as an employer.
This event is hosted by Gemma McCall.
Gemma is the co-founder and CEO of Culture Shift, a tech for good software development business. The technology allows people within organisations to speak out about bullying and harassment, anonymously if they wish, and gives leaders the data they need to create change and a more inclusive working environment,
She’s also a respected voice on issues around harassment in places of work and study, often being called on by high profile organisations such as the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to contribute to their reports.
Between them, they’ll also discuss how to prevent and respond to harassment, and what you can do to protect your people and protect your business so what’s happening to some of the largest organisations in the UK doesn’t happen to you.
