Employers' duty

Introduction

The Equality Act 2010 applies to all categories of staff who may work in a business, including workers, employees, contractors, partners, or directors (collectively referred to as workers in this section), but not volunteers.

Duty to prevent harassment in the workplace

Employers must protect a worker from all forms of harassment occurring in the course of their employment by taking all reasonable steps to prevent it.

This is a preventative duty and covers harassment based on a worker's protected characteristics and, as of 30 October 2026, sexual harassment.

Prior to 30 October 2026, employers were only required to take reasonable steps (not all) to prevent sexual harassment.

You'll be liable for any harassment committed by another member of staff and, as of 30 October 2026, a third party (see below and preventing third-party harassment for more on this).

Note: 'In the course of a worker's employment' means while they are at work or in a workplace-related environment, such as an office party or training event located outside the workplace.

Third party

A third party means a person other than the employer or one of its staff. This can include:

• Customers or clients
• Other people sharing the building where staff work
• People working for suppliers
• Friends and family of staff
• Delegates at a conference
• Freelancers and self-employed contractors
• Members of the public.

What does 'preventative duty' mean?

It means you must take proactive steps to change any problematic workplace behaviour and eradicate harassment in the workplace. For example:

• You should not wait until an incident of harassment has taken place before taking any action - you'll need to anticipate scenarios when workers may be subject to harassment and take all reasonable steps to prevent it.
• If harassment has happened, you should take all reasonable steps to stop it from happening again.

Taking effective steps to deal with the harassment after it's occurred, such as an investigation and disciplinary action, won't be enough on its own to avoid liability. But it may help to show that you've taken your anti-harassment policy seriously and used it effectively when it's been breached.

Any remedial action that you've previously taken to avoid future acts of harassment (such as improving reporting and investigation processes) will help to establish that you've taken preventative steps in relation to a current act of harassment.

What does 'all reasonable steps' mean?

There is no set minimum about what you can do to prevent harassment and protect your workers.

From 30 October 2026, the government has the power to make regulations that specify what 'taking all reasonable steps' means. This is likely to take the form of guidance, but is only expected to be available sometime in 2027.

In the meantime, the following resources from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) can help decide what proactive steps you can take to prevent harassment:

• Their research into workplace harassment examines the causes of workplace harassment and gives suggestions and insights on how it can be prevented. It was published following warnings by industry experts that employers must move beyond tick-box exercises to prevent harassment.
• Their technical guidance and 8-point plan. These provide general information and a helpful step-by-step guide about preventing harassment. Though drafted for incidents of sexual harassment, they're still a useful resource for harassment that's based on a worker's protected characteristics.

The legal test

Whether a step is reasonable is an objective test about what is reasonable for an employer to do in the circumstances at the time. This will vary from employer to employer and will ultimately be determined by decisions made by an Employment Tribunal or court.

Usually, you'll have taken all reasonable steps if there are no further steps that you could reasonably be expected to take.

The EHRC technical guide says that when deciding whether a step is reasonable, the following factors may be relevant:

• The size and resources of your business
• The nature of the working environment
• The sector you operate in
• The risks present in the workplace
• The nature of any contact with third parties (e.g. type of third party, frequency, environment)
• The likely effect of taking a particular step and whether an alternative step could be more effective
• The time, cost and potential disruption of taking a particular step, weighed against the benefit it could achieve. A step that's expensive, time consuming and troublesome to implement will not be a reasonable step to take if it achieves nothing. Conversely, if a step is effective, then this may outweigh any other negative factors.
• Whether concerns have been raised with you that harassment has taken place (if so, it would likely be reasonable for you to take steps to investigate and ensure it does not happen again)
• Whether you must comply with any relevant regulatory standards (e.g. standards set by the Financial Conduct Authority or General Medical Council)
• Whether the steps you've taken appear to have been effective or ineffective (e.g. if a further incident of harassment occurs after you took steps, this may indicate that you should consider extra and/or alternative action).

The above list could be a starting point for performing a risk assessment.

Note that the guidance makes it clear that the list is not exhaustive. Whether a step you take is reasonable depends on the circumstances of each individual case. For example, an employer who knows that a worker has previously committed an act of harassment may be required to take specific steps to ensure that they do not do it again in the future.