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The Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Law 

You might be aware that as of 26th October 2024 the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 places increased responsibility on companies to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace as defined in the Equality Act 2010.

The law means, that employers must take proactive steps to prevent discriminatory behaviour in the workplace. Therefore, all employers must:

• Review and update or where necessary create a policy containing sexual harassment in the workplace
• Provide mandatory training to all their staff, so that they fully understand what behaviour is acceptable, what sexual harassment means and how to raise issues and report them.
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• As an employer you have the duty to provide a safe workplace for your employees, therefore taking a zero-tolerance stance approach to sexual harassment.
• You also have a duty to draft a sexual harassment workplace risk assessment (WPRA) and communicate it to your employees . This will highlight all hazards within the company, potential risks and the control measures you have implemented to minimise risks.
• Taking measures to provide an easy and safe reporting system for any sexual harassment issues raised by your employees.
• Ensuring that all sexual harassment allegations are taken seriously and are properly and impartially investigated.
• Providing a champion that all employees can contact and discuss any harassment issues in confidence

This new law marks an important step forward in the UK's commitment to creating safe workplaces that are free from sexual harassment. This law however does not apply to other harassment based on race, age, sexual orientation, gender or religious belief.

Understanding the new requirements and implementing all that is needed to foster a culture that promotes dignity and equality for all employees is key. 

Implementing a safety culture means:

• Management commitment and leadership
• Good communication at all levels
• Employees' involvement
• High business profile on health and safety
• Providing training and refresher training at regular intervals
• Promoting ownership

The benefits of effective leadership on health and safety culture and performance are:

• Reduced sickness absence
• Enhanced productivity
• Fewer work accidents
• Less occupational diseases and work-related health problems

The nature of lone working comes in many forms

When asking the question in a training session, what the term 'lone working' means often the reply is, 'people in charge who close up shop/workplaces etc. at the end of their business day'. A lone worker being one who occupies for example any of these roles:

What this section aims to do: 

This policy will offer guidance to Companies (Management and staff) for the procedures in place to deal with a significant communicable disease outbreak, e.g. Pandemic Flu (Coronavirus, Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS), Avian Flu, Swine Flu) outbreak etc. with effective infection control measures.