Employment
< Back to Article ListPreventing sexual harassment in the workplace
Last updated: 25 September 2023 at 16:47:51 UTC by JAMS Assistant
COUNCIL NEWSLETTER
SEPTEMBER 2021
1. New obligations on Councils to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace
The Government has published its plans for reforming Sexual Harassment protection in the workplace.
The key points are:
1.1 A new duty to prevent sexual harassment at work.
Councils, along with other Employers, will need to take proactive steps to protect staff. Currently Councils can defend themselves against such claims if they can demonstrate they have taken “all reasonable” steps, such as staff training. In future Councils will have to demonstrate that they have provided adequate current training to staff and Elected Members to be able to defend themselves.
The Employment Appeals Tribunal recently provided some guidance on what can be considered adequate and current. In Allay (UK) Limited v Gehlen the Court ruled that poor quality equality and diversity training that was conducted in 2015 was “stale” and provided no defence. The Court stressed that the deciding factor was not just when the training was delivered, but also its quality and effectiveness.
1.2 Councils will be liable for acts of harassment committed by members of the public.
Under the Equality Act 2010 the Council will have to demonstrate that it has taken all reasonable steps to prevent Employees from harassment by the public, including:
1) Training for Chairs and Managers to stop problems and either take steps to prevent them or support the Employee.
2) Lone worker risk assessments.
3) Simple and practical Grievance/Complaints procedures for staff to use.
4) Public notices informing people of the consequences of unacceptable conduct.
5) Up to date training for all staff regarding how to recognise harassment and steps to take.
1.3 Tribunal application time limits.
The Government is also proposing to extend the time limit for claims for harassment and discrimination to be brought to the Employment Tribunal from three months to six.
2. Employee wins £180,000 because her Employer didn’t accommodate her request to change her working hours.
The legal entitlement for Employees with six months or more service to request a change to their hours has existed for over twenty years. However, according to legislation it is only a request, and Councils can reject it if it can be proven that the requested change will:
1) Incur unacceptable costs.
2) Have a detrimental effect on customer demand.
3) Cannot move other staff to cover the hours the Employee making the request does not work.
4) Cannot recruit someone to do those hours.
5) Will damage the quality of output.
6) Will damage performance.
However in a recent case (Thompson v Manors), an Employee was awarded £180,000 for Sex Discrimination resulting from the Employers refusal to accommodate a request to leave work at 5p.m. for child care reasons.
The Employer had investigated the Employee’s request and decided that the resultant additional costs and damage to customer demand meant that it had to reject the request. Both of these reasons are listed in the legislation as being legitimate reasons for doing what the Employer did and rejecting Flexible Working requests.
However, the Tribunal still allowed the Employee’s claim and criticised the Employer for failing to back its reasons up with hard evidence that it would suffer these detriments.
Advice to Councils dealing with Flexible Working requests is to treat them seriously and fully investigate all options before turning them down.
PROFILE
Chris Moses LLM Chartered FCIPD is Managing Director of Personnel Advice & Solutions Ltd. He is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and has a Master’s Degree in Employment Law. If you have any questions regarding these issues please feel free to contact him on (01529) 305056 or email p.d.solutions@zen.co.uk