Dignity at work policy

You’re not legally obliged to put in place a dignity at work policy. However, harassment on the grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation are all unlawful and implementing a dignity at work policy statement will help with the statutory “all reasonable steps” defence to a harassment claim. It can also assist you with showing you complied with your proactive duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of your staff.

Unlawful harassment

Under the Equality Act 2010 it’s unlawful to harass an employee because of age, disability, gender reassignment, race (including colour, nationality and ethnic or national origins), religion or belief, sex (covering both gender-based harassment and sexual harassment) or sexual orientation. A person generally harasses another person under the Act if they engage in unwanted conduct related to one of these protected characteristics, and the conduct has the purpose or effect of violating the other person’s dignity, or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that other person. Sexual harassment occurs if a person engages in unwanted conduct of a sexual nature and the conduct has the above purpose or effect. You will be vicariously liable for any acts of unlawful harassment committed by your employees against other employees in the course of their employment unless you can show you took all reasonable steps to prevent those acts from occurring. As there’s no limit on the amount of compensation an employee can receive for unlawful harassment, and it can include compensation for injury to feelings, it’s important that you take dignity at work seriously. In addition, you’re now under a separate duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of your employees in the course of their employment, which means you need to be proactive and put a range of measures in place to try and stop sexual harassment from happening in the first place, such as developing an effective dignity at work policy, conducting a sexual harassment risk assessment to assess and take steps to reduce risk in the workplace, setting up reporting procedures for complaints, rolling out training and addressing harassment by third parties. So, putting in place our Dignity at Work Policy statement - and ensuring you follow its terms and give regular high-quality compulsory training to your staff and managers on their rights and obligations relating to preserving employees’ dignity - means that not only is it likely to assist in reducing the risk of unlawful harassment occurring in the first place (which is particularly important in relation to your duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment), but also you have a much greater chance of being able to successfully rely on the statutory “all reasonable steps” defence to a harassment claim. Be aware that just having a policy statement won’t be enough though for the statutory defence - it’s essential that the policy is disseminated to all staff and that they are given appropriate training to support the policy. That training should be comprehensive and include what the law says, what standards of behaviour you expect from staff, how they can report complaints of harassment and how such complaints will be dealt with. Training for managers should additionally include how you will support them in dealing with complaints. The training should then be refreshed at regular intervals, e.g. annually.