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The Employment Rights Bill has significantly swung the bat in favour of employees from day one, yet many employers still appear to be in the dark when it comes to how to prepare themselves and their managers to understand what it means; HR Grapevine spoke to two experts to find out what training really needs to be done to meet the regulations.
Most organisations have not invested adequately in training
New sexual harassment legislation places new responsibilities on employers to maintain safe and respectful workplaces but according to research by law firm Freeths, three in five or 60% of organisations have not yet invested in training to ensure every employee is aware of their responsibilities and the new legislation.
Anna Rebaudo, Technical HR Consultant at AdviserPlus says, “This inertia carries significant risks, exposing organisations to heightened legal action and failing to ensure the basic right of a safe working environment for all employees. This needs to be urgently addressed - proactive awareness is a foundational pillar of a healthy and sustainable organisation. The potential ramifications of neglecting this urgent need – both financial and reputational – are simply too significant to ignore.”
Employers that have their head in the sand will also discover that the problem is here to stay too. Dónall Breen, senior associate of employment law firm Littler says, “Undoubtably, this is an issue which is not going to go away. After an initial surge of enquiries from clients when the duty came into effect last October, we are increasingly seeing HR teams learn about this duty when reviewing compliance more generally and realising they need to act – both now and on an ongoing basis.”
What is making this even trickier is that as Breen says it’s still too early to tell the impact this is having on claims. “Any such claims will take months (if not years) before they reach a full merits Employment Tribunal hearing due to backlogs in the Tribunal system. However, we strongly suspect this duty will be a useful tool for employees litigating claims, both to uplift their awards and to bolster their claim by requiring disclosure about the steps (or lack of steps) taken by their employer."
Education is the key to unlocking understanding
Rebaudo says, “The first step in training employers on sexual harassment legislation changes is to provide a clear, comprehensive overview of the new legal requirements, including tangible, real-world examples of the nuances of what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in today's workplace.”
