The Worker Protection Act 2023 (WPA), which came into force just over a year ago, placed employers under a positive obligation to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
It was hoped that this preventative duty would create the step change needed to address a still too common problem. While many employers have made welcome changes in response to the legislation, however, overall responses have not yet resulted in the cultural change hoped for. With further reform in this area anticipated in the Employment Rights Bill, this must now be a priority for employers, including in the legal sector.
The legislative context
The WPA was introduced against a backdrop of stubbornly prevalent workplace sexual harassment, despite the heightened awareness generated by the #MeToo movement. Figures cited by the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee in 2018 indicated that 40% of women and 18% of men had experienced unwanted sexual behaviour in the workplace. It is dispiriting that seven years on, over half of respondents to a survey conducted by Unite the Union of its female members reported experiencing workplace sexual harassment, with 25% reporting sexual assault.
The WPA seeks to address this by requiring employers to act proactively to prevent workplace sexual harassment. Failure to comply can result in an uplift of up to 25% in compensation awarded by Employment Tribunals in harassment cases, Equality and Human Rights Commission enforcement action and reputational harm. For law firm employers and individual lawyers, there are also potentially significant regulatory consequences: the Solicitors Regulation Authority opened a record 109 cases relating to sexual harassment in 2024 and since 2023 the SRA’s Code of Conduct has included a requirement for law firm partners to challenge workplace harassment.
Impact one year on
Unsurprisingly, given current Employment Tribunal backlogs, we have not yet seen any awards relating to breach of the preventative duty, although claims for failure to comply with the WPA are now relatively commonplace. A Freedom of Information request by law firm Nockolds revealed that calls about sexual harassment to the ACAS helpline, which provides advice and support on workplace issues to both employers and employees, increased by 40% in the first six months of 2025, compared to the same period last year.
In our own practice we have seen the WPA prompting employers to conduct detailed sexual harassment risk assessments focusing on risk factors specific to their workplace, and taking meaningful steps to mitigate these risks.
Not all employers have taken appropriate action, however. A recent WorkNest survey found that 41% had not yet conducted a sexual harassment risk assessment, and many employers are still treating compliance as a tick box exercise, when what is really needed is a determination from the top to get to the root of this problem, approaching it with rigour and granularity.
What should employers be doing?
Compliance begins with a thorough risk assessment tailored to the organisation’s size, structure and working practices. Factors such as lone working, travel, hierarchical power dynamics and alcohol consumption should be considered. In the legal sector, key risks may include behaviour at work-related social events, the influence senior individuals hold over the careers of their teams and the perception (and sometimes reality) that those who report concerns place their future at a firm in jeopardy.
Well-drafted policies must clearly define sexual harassment, outline reporting channels, and specify sanctions; these should be communicated clearly to the workforce. Employers should consider offering multiple reporting options, including anonymous channels; and line managers, as well as HR, should be trained to handle disclosures appropriately.
If concerns are raised, robust investigation procedures - sometimes involving external specialists - are essential, and data on complaints should be kept and analysed to identify patterns and address systemic risks.
Finally, and fundamentally, culture matters. How an organisation’s leadership communicates its approach to sexual harassment, and how it deals with concerns in practice, is likely to determine how effectively it addresses the issue.
Looking ahead: the Employment Rights Bill
Anticipated reforms will further raise the bar; the Employment Rights Bill contains provisions requiring employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent harassment and restricting the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in relation to allegations of harassment and discrimination. The latter is a potentially seismic change, which may mean that organisations can no longer rely on confidentiality to manage reputational risk, but must be prepared for their cultures and responses to come under public scrutiny.
Given the statistics, it is very likely that most employers will experience complaints of sexual harassment at some point. Instead of fearing the stigma of an incident or allegation, employers should tackle the issue transparently, embracing the raft of steps outlined above.
Florence Brocklesby, founder, and Georgina Calvert-Lee, senior consultant, at Bellevue Law
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