Sexual Harassment Risk Assessment

Employers are under a mandatory legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. Part of that duty involves undertaking a sexual harassment risk assessment.

Here, our HR and employment law specialists consider how an employer might carry out a sexual harassment risk assessment to ensure compliance with their legal obligations. However, the exact steps required depend heavily on a variety of factors, including the size of your organisation, the nature of your business, and your employees’ working patterns. Accordingly, taking expert advice to develop a risk assessment appropriate to your commercial reality is essential.

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Step 1: Consider And Identify Risks

You should begin by considering your workplace and identifying any factors that may place employees at risk. If you are aware of previous instances of sexual harassment, the circumstances in which these occurred can be a good starting point, but it’s important to also look at the wider picture and anticipate any areas that might pose a risk.

Examples of risk factors that may be present and require consideration include the following:

The prevalence of employees working alone or out of hours
Whether your workplace is an environment in which alcohol is regularly consumed
Whether your employees attend any work-related social events
The culture within your workplace and wider industry
Whether your employees need to travel for work, including whether this travel involves overnight stays
Whether your organisation involves specific power imbalances that may give rise to an increased risk of sexual harassment, such as if you employ young people

Step 2: Decide What Measures Might Help In Reducing The Risks You Have Identified

There are a wide range of measures employers can implement to reduce the risk of their employees being subjected to sexual harassment. The ones we give as examples below will not apply to all organisations, and you should take advice if you are unsure.

Examples of the types of measures you might identify as helping to reduce instances of sexual harassment include the following:

Fostering a respectful, inclusive workplace
Educating and informing staff about sexual harassment, including the types of behaviour that may constitute sexual harassment, how they can report any instances of such behaviour, and how you deal with any complaints
Implementing clear policies on sexual harassment
Training your staff on dealing with any complaints or reports of sexual harassment
Ensuring any victims of sexual harassment are properly supported
Avoiding staff working alone in high-risk environments, such as where people consume alcohol
Where people need to work alone in high-risk environments, ensuring they have access to immediate support should they need it

Step 3: Deciding Which Preventative Measures Are Reasonable For Your Organisation To Implement

Identifying the steps your organisation could take to prevent sexual harassment may be relatively straightforward, but knowing which of those measures would be deemed ‘reasonable’ in the context of your business can be far more challenging. Accordingly, many small businesses take advice from experts like ours when balancing the need to protect their employees and comply with their legal obligations against their resources and commercial reality.

Examples of the factors that can be relevant when deciding what is ‘reasonable’ include the following:

The industry you operate in
The nature of your workplace
The size of your organisation and the extent of its resources
The costs involved in implementing a particular measure compared with its potential benefits

Step 4: Implement The Measures

Once you have identified the measures it would be reasonable for you to take to prevent sexual harassment, you must implement them. This is not a one-off exercise, but an ongoing one. For example, your employees may require regular training, which someone within the business must take responsibility for.

Step 5: Review The Risk

Risk assessments are not static, and they must be reviewed regularly to check that they are effective. You may be able to assess their effectiveness by reviewing the instances of sexual harassment reported by your workforce and asking employees whether they have noticed any changes in culture.

If you observe an increase in sexual harassment complaints, you should review your risk assessments sooner rather than later, since this can indicate that your measures are not working as they should. Other events, such as opening a new site or taking on a high number of new employees may also warrant a review.

If you need guidance on preparing and undertaking a sexual harassment risk assessment for your business, our HR and employment law experts are here to help. We specialise in assisting small businesses to remain legally compliant through practical, cost-efficient HR strategies.