Employers with a presence in the United Kingdom now have less than three months to ensure they are compliant with new workplace harassment regulations.
The changes, which become effective in October, involve two primary updates. Employers will now be required to take “all reasonable steps”—as compared to current language requiring “reasonable steps”—to prevent workplace sexual harassment. The regulations are also expanding to include employer liability for any type of harassment conducted by third parties.
When the changes go into effect, it “will mark a fundamental shift in U.K. workplace harassment law,” Natasha Adom and Philip Cameron of labor law firm Littler recently wrote in a post on the news. The shift will “significantly” raise the stakes for employers, they say, and reinforce “a broader move away from reactive complaint handling towards proactive prevention, governance and risk management.”
Recent research from compliance training solutions provider Traliant sheds light on the pervasiveness of workplace harassment. More than one-third of the 2,000 employees surveyed have witnessed harassing behavior at work in the last five years, and one in five have been subjected to it themselves. About one-quarter didn’t report it to their employer, with fears of retaliation the top reason they avoided reporting harassment.
The UK regulations are part of a broader policy trend, Adom and Cameron say, toward rooting out harassment at work.
“...
Singer and actor Kim Min-jong filed a police complaint against rapper and producer MC Mong (Shin Dong-hyun) for allegedly spreading false information about him through an internet broadcast. On th...