A number of those reforms will specifically relate to sexual harassment protections, with disclosures about sexual harassment being explicitly qualified as protected whistleblowing disclosures under section 43B of the Employment Rights Act 1996, being effective from 6th April 2026. Effectively, this will mean amending existing whistleblowing legislation to make sexual harassment a recognised category of “relevant wrongdoing”.
However, that’s not all. There are more reforms to come in the next 18 months, so the question employers should be asking themselves is:
Aare we ready, and have we done enough?
Yes. In October 2026, further reforms will be made when the existing duty to take “reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment will be strengthened even further. From October, employers must show they have taken “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment.
This might feel like just a minor change in wording to existing legislation, but it will have a much bigger impact on an organisation’s duties as well as an increase in the scrutiny on employers to have taken anticipatory action and to demonstrate as such.
Effectively, this is a significantly higher bar focused on proactive prevention and demonstrable evidence of action, and just one of the potential consequences of breaching that duty is that Tribunals are now empowered to increase compensation by up to 25% where they feel that the employer has failed in its preventative duty.
Doing nothing is not an option.
We know that, even since the implementation of the Worker Protection Act 2023 (Amendment to Equality Act 2010) in October 2024, scrutiny on organisations to be proactive in anticipating sexual harassment has been intense. And, here at FAIRER, we know that for many organisations, this can feel deeply uncomfortable – the admittance that sexual harassment could happen in their workplace, and the acknowledgement that responding to claims of sexual harassment (even robustly and effectively) is simply no longer enough to comply with the duties placed upon them.
That’s where we can help.
We believe that just one part of the upcoming duty to take “all reasonable steps” must be the proactive and ongoing delivery of training to all employees across an organisation. Having open, honest and sensitive discussions about what constitutes sexual harassment and how employees must respond to it is now a vital part of any organisation’s responsibilities.
At FAIRER, we have been designing and delivering sexual harassment awareness training for many years across a wide and diverse range of industries, both big and small.
Our training programme seeks to increase understanding and awareness of sexual harassment, particularly following the legislative changes in October 2024, as well as in response to the upcoming changes resulting from these Employment Rights Act (ERA) reforms over the next 18 months.
We have a range of tailored and hybrid programmes that will suit any organisation, using a variety of delivery methods including:
Webinars and virtual sessions
In-person sessions
eLearning products, and
Other pre- and post-learning guidance, including nudges and conversation cards
as well as other services that can complement the learning being delivered, such as:
Facilitating ‘listening circles’ and other guided conversations, and
Allyship training
Our consultants will be happy to talk to you about your specific needs. Simply get in touch to see how we can work together.