The Employment Rights Act 2025 will make employers liable for third-party harassment unless they can show they took all reasonable steps to prevent it, with this new expanded duty expected to take effect in October 2026. This article considers why effective investigations will be central to demonstrating compliance with the new duty, and the challenges of investigating allegations involving individuals outside the organisation.
Changes under the Employment Rights Act 2025 (ERA) will mean that employers are liable if their employees are harassed by third parties in the course of employment, unless they can demonstrate that they took “all reasonable steps” to prevent the harassment. This duty will apply to every type of harassment, not just sexual harassment. It is expected that these measures will take effect on 30 October 2026 without further consultation. We have written in more detail about the proposals in our article.
Third-party harassment refers to harassment of an employee which is carried out by a person who is neither the employer nor a fellow employee (e.g. a contractor, customer or client of the employer). The Equality Act 2010 defines harassment as unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic (e.g. age, disability, race) that has the purpose or effect of violating an individual's dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or...
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