New workplace harassment laws coming into force on 30 October 2026 will significantly strengthen employers’ responsibilities for preventing harassment. The changes will expand existing sexual harassment duties and introduce new liability where employees experience harassment from third parties, including customers and clients.
Employers should therefore use the remaining time to review their policies, risk assessments, training and reporting procedures. Waiting until somebody is harassed at work before taking action will become increasingly difficult to defend. Even more so, where preventative measures could reasonably have been introduced.
What Are the New Workplace Harassment Laws?
The Employment Rights Act 2025 introduces important changes to the Equality Act 2010. From 30 October 2026, employers will be required to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. The current preventative duty, introduced in October 2024, requires employers to take “reasonable steps”.
The addition of one word may appear relatively minor, but the practical difference is important. Acas explains that employers will be expected to take all steps that are reasonable for their organisation. The focus is also firmly on preventing sexual harassment before it happens rather than simply responding effectively afterwards.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 also gives ministers powers to specify particular steps that may be regarded as reasonable. These could include conducting assessments, publishing policies or plans and establishing appropriate procedures for reporting and handling sexual harassment complaints. Further regulations may therefore provide employers with more detailed requirements in the future.
New Third Party Liabilities for Employers
Another significant change concerns harassment by third parties. From 30 October 2026, employers can be held liable where a third party harasses an employee during their employment. Especially if the employer failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it.
A third party can include a customer, client, contractor, consultant, service user, patient, student or member of the public. The protection is also broader than sexual harassment alone. The new provision covers the relevant forms of harassment under the Equality Act 2010. This includes harassment related to protected characteristics such as age, disability, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.
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These third party liabilities will be particularly important in customer-facing sectors. Employees working in retail, hospitality, healthcare, education and other public-facing environments may regularly encounter individuals over whom their employer has limited direct control.
However, a lack of direct control does not mean an employer can ignore the risk. Organisations will need to consider what preventative measures are reasonable within their particular working environment.
New Workplace Harassment Laws – Why Should Employers Start Preparing Now?
The new workplace harassment laws strengthen an existing shift towards preventative action.
The October 2026 reforms raise that threshold and create direct third-party harassment liability. Employers that have treated their existing duty as a one-off policy exercise should therefore reassess whether their current measures would demonstrate that all reasonable steps have been taken.
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The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) already advises employers to identify risks proactively, introduce preventative measures and regularly review whether those measures remain effective. Its guidance states that employers are unlikely to comply with the current preventative duty without conducting an appropriate risk assessment.
Preparation should consequently focus on what happens in practice rather than simply whether the organisation possesses an anti-harassment policy.
Review Harassment and Sexual Harassment Policies
Employers should begin by reviewing their existing bullying, harassment and sexual harassment policies. Policies should clearly explain what constitutes unacceptable behaviour. Additionally, policies should identify reporting channels and the actions that may follow substantiated allegations.
The new workplace harassment laws make rules around third-party harassment particularly important. Policies should explain that inappropriate behaviour from customers, clients, contractors and other external individuals will not be tolerated, while setting out how employees can report incidents.
Examples should reflect the organisation’s actual working environment. A hospitality business may need to address inappropriate customer behaviour, while an office-based organisation might focus more heavily on clients, contractors, networking events and business travel.
Employers should also ensure that policies are communicated effectively. A well-drafted document will provide limited protection if employees and managers are unaware of its contents or do not understand how it applies.
Carry Out Workplace Harassment Risk Assessments
Risk assessments should become a central part of preparation for the new workplace harassment laws.
Read More:Workplace Sexual Harassment Prevention: Employers Still Have a Long Road Ahead, Expert Says
Employers should consider where harassment at work is most likely to occur and which employees may be particularly exposed. Relevant factors could include lone working, night shifts, alcohol at work events, customer-facing responsibilities, business travel and significant power imbalances between employees.
Previous incidents should also inform the assessment. Repeated complaints involving a particular department, customer, location or working arrangement may indicate a foreseeable risk requiring further preventative measures.
Third parties should feature explicitly within this process. Employers should identify which external individuals employees interact with and consider what practical controls could reduce the risk of harassment.
Risk assessments should also be reviewed periodically. Changes to working practices, staffing, locations or client relationships may create risks that were not present when an earlier assessment was completed.
Strengthen Reporting Procedures
Employees who are harassed at work need to know how and where to report their concerns. Reporting procedures should be straightforward, accessible and confidential. Employers may also consider providing more than one reporting route, particularly where an employee’s concern involves their direct manager or another senior member of staff.
The EHRC recommends considering reporting systems that allow concerns to be raised anonymously as well as by name. Employers should also maintain confidential records of concerns, including informal reports, because these can help identify recurring patterns or areas of increased risk.
Managers receiving complaints should know how to respond appropriately. They should avoid dismissing allegations as jokes, banter or misunderstandings without investigation and should not discourage an employee from proceeding with a complaint.
Acas advises employers to keep an open mind and take sexual harassment complaints seriously, including where there were no witnesses or the person accused is senior or influential.
Update Workplace Training in Line With New Workplace Harassment Laws
Employers should review whether their current harassment training is sufficiently practical and up to date. Training should help employees understand what sexual harassment and other forms of unlawful harassment can look like, how to report concerns and what to do if they witness inappropriate behaviour. Managers require additional training on receiving complaints, conducting or escalating investigations and supporting affected employees.
Read More: False Sexual Harassment Allegations Lead to Unfair Dismissal: What Can Employers Learn?
Training should also address third parties. Employees working with customers, patients, clients or members of the public should understand what action they can take when an external individual behaves inappropriately.
The EHRC recommends that training is tailored to the employer and its workforce rather than taking a generic approach. It should also be refreshed regularly, with employers retaining appropriate records of who has completed it.
A single online training module completed several years ago may be difficult to rely upon as evidence that an employer has taken all reasonable preventative steps.
Review Relationships with Customers, Clients and Contractors
The introduction of third party liabilities means employers should look beyond their internal workforce when reviewing harassment protections.
Acas suggests that reasonable preventative measures could include reviewing customer, client and supplier contracts or terms and conditions so they reflect the organisation’s harassment policies. Employers might also introduce warnings, customer behaviour standards or processes for restricting contact with individuals who have harassed employees.
The appropriate response will depend on the organisation. A hotel might need procedures for dealing with guests who harass staff, while a professional services firm may need a process for responding when an important client behaves inappropriately towards an employee.
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Commercial importance should not become a reason for tolerating harassment. Employers should establish in advance who has authority to intervene and what action can be taken when a third party crosses acceptable boundaries.
Review How Complaints Are Investigated
Preventative measures are essential, but employers also need robust procedures when harassment occurs. Complaints should be investigated promptly, fairly and sensitively. Employers should consider how to protect the complainant and witnesses from further harassment or victimisation while maintaining an impartial process for everyone involved.
An investigation may also reveal shortcomings in existing preventative measures. Employers should therefore ask whether an incident could reasonably have been anticipated and whether policies, training, supervision or other safeguards should now be changed.
This approach turns individual complaints into an opportunity to strengthen wider prevention. Repeated incidents without corresponding changes to workplace practices could make it harder for an employer to demonstrate that all reasonable steps were taken.
Be Careful When Using NDAs
Employers should also review their approach to confidentiality clauses and any NDA used when resolving workplace disputes. Since 6 April 2026, sexual harassment has been a qualifying disclosure for whistleblowing purposes. An NDA cannot lawfully prevent a worker from making a protected whistleblowing disclosure about sexual harassment or reporting sexual harassment that amounts to a crime to the police.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 also contains wider provisions intended to prevent NDAs from silencing workers who speak about harassment or discrimination. The Government’s current implementation timetable indicates that regulations addressing misuse of NDAs in workplace harassment and discrimination cases are expected during 2027, rather than as part of the 30 October 2026 harassment reforms.
Employers should therefore avoid treating confidentiality clauses as a method of concealing workplace harassment. Existing templates and settlement practices should be reviewed with appropriate legal advice to ensure they remain lawful as these reforms develop.
Keep Prevention Under Regular Review
Compliance with the new workplace harassment laws should not be approached as a one-time exercise completed before 30 October.
Employers should regularly review complaints, employee feedback, risk assessments and the effectiveness of training. Where patterns emerge, HR teams should investigate whether additional preventative measures are necessary.
The EHRC recommends monitoring formal and informal complaint data, seeking employee feedback and reviewing policies and training regularly. Changes within the workforce or workplace may also mean that measures previously considered sufficient are no longer appropriate.
Employers should keep records of the preventative action they take. Documentation cannot compensate for ineffective measures, but it can help demonstrate how risks were identified, what action followed and how the organisation continued to assess its approach.
Preparing for 30 October 2026
The new workplace harassment laws represent an important strengthening of employers’ responsibilities. From 30 October 2026, employers must take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment and may face liability for harassment committed by third parties where they have failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it.
Employers should use the period before implementation to review policies, conduct risk assessments, strengthen reporting procedures, refresh training and examine interactions with customers, clients and other third parties.
The central principle behind the reforms is prevention. Employers should not wait until an employee is harassed at work before deciding what action to take.
By identifying foreseeable risks and putting appropriate safeguards in place now, organisations will be better positioned to meet the strengthened legal duties while creating workplaces where employees feel confident that harassment will be prevented, reported and addressed.
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