Preventing Sexual
Harassment at Work
eLearning Course
Evolving law. Constant confidence
Real-world learning for a modern, compliant workplace.
Essential workplace
sexual harassment training
Employers have a legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, with the Employment Rights Act 2025 strengthening this to an ‘all reasonable steps’ requirement from October 2026.
Tribunals can increase compensation by up to 25% where employers fail to meet their duty to prevent sexual harassment.
Tick-box training is no longer enough; practical, engaging learning helps reduce risk, build awareness and demonstrate a genuine commitment to prevention.
Sexual harassment in the workplace:
A widespread issue
Sexual harassment in UK workplaces remains a significant issue, even with the introduction of new legal duties. Recent findings underline the scale of the problem:
- A Unite survey of 300,000 workers found that 30% had experienced sexual harassment
- Just 26% felt their employer had taken sufficient steps to promote a zero-tolerance culture.
- HR Grapevine reported that more than 60% of organisations still haven’t invested in sexual harassment training.
With these figures, and the expectation that the Employment Rights Bill will place greater responsibility on employers to prevent workplace harassment, reviewing and strengthening your training provision is now more important than ever.
Our course helps your organisation to:
- Increase understanding of what constitutes sexual harassment at work, going beyond the minimum legal requirements
- Give individuals clear guidance on how to speak up and raise any concerns
- Reinforce learning through practical, real-world scenario exercises
- Reduce risk of claims and limit exposure to a potential 25% increase in compensation for successful cases
- Thorough reporting and an audit trail to provide evidence if required
What we cover
What is sexual harassment?
Hitting reset – raising awareness by debunking the myths and sharing facts around the impact and prevalence in the workplace
What is sexual harassment? – the legal test and understanding the purpose or effect of behaviour
Spotting behaviours – from unwanted advances, obscene comments to invasions of personal space, Responding to inappropriate behaviour
Responding to inappropriate behaviour
Deal in the moment – appropriate and immediate action (whether it's directed to you or you've witnessed it) to prevent further inappropriate behaviour from occurring
Call out behaviour – techniques to raise safely, sensitively and confidentially in real-time
Progressing concerns and delivering outcomes
Raising concerns – outlining the options available (informally and formally) and the potential for police involvement
Zero tolerance – understanding possible escalation (formal processes) and sanctions
On-demand eLearning Walkthrough
Watch our on-demand walkthrough of Preventing Sexual Harassment at Work. The session shows how to meet the new legal duty to take reasonable steps and how our eLearning supports compliance and awareness across your workforce.
In just 40 minutes, our employment law group experts, Charlie McHugh and Rena Christou, explain how the course helps build understanding of what amounts to sexual harassment, gives employees clear routes to speak up and uses practical, real-world scenarios to test learning.
They also cover how the training helps minimise liability, avoid a potential 25% uplift in compensation, and provide robust reporting should you ever need to evidence completion.
Additional Courses
Better Banter at Work eLearning
Protect your business without compromising what makes the workplace great
Understand where humour ends and harassment begins
Learn the law, what’s protected, and how intent vs impact matters
Practical guidance on calling out concerns, supporting others, and handling inappropriate behaviour
FAQs
How will the Employment Rights Act extend employer sexual harassment duties?
The Employment Rights Bill Act extends employer sexual harassment duties in the following ways:
- Higher standard of prevention: The duty for employers to prevent sexual harassment is being raised from taking “reasonable steps” to taking “all reasonable steps.” This duty will come into effect in October 2026 and requires employers to take a more comprehensive and proactive approach to prevention.
- Third-party harassment liability: Employers will be held liable for sexual harassment committed by third parties (e.g., clients, customers, suppliers) unless they can demonstrate they took “all reasonable steps” to prevent it. (Note: This liability for third-party harassment will apply to all types of harassment, not just sexual harassment.)
- Strengthened whistleblowing protection: The Act explicitly includes the disclosure of sexual harassment as a qualifying disclosure under whistleblowing legislation, protecting employees who report it from retaliation (such as dismissal or detriments).
- Ban on confidentiality clauses: The Act voids provisions in settlement or non-disclosure agreements that prevent workers from making allegations or disclosures about certain types of discrimination and harassment.
Is there a recommended risk assessment template for sexual harassment?
How often should sexual harassment training be updated?
Training should be updated and delivered regularly to be considered current and effective.
- Refresher Frequency: Updating training at least every 12 months (if not more frequently) is advised to raise awareness and help protect against employment tribunal claims.
- The “Stale” Training Precedent: The case of Allay (UK) Ltd v Mr S Gehlen demonstrated that providing one-off or infrequent training is insufficient. The tribunal rejected the employer’s defence against a racial harassment claim because the anti-harassment training was deemed “stale” and ineffective, having “faded from people’s memories.”
To rely on the statutory defence of taking “all reasonable steps” to prevent harassment, employers must be able to show that their training and policies are current, effective, and regularly refreshed. Training should be treated as an ongoing process, not a one-off, “tick-box exercise.”
