You don’t need us to tell you that Valentine’s Day is on the way, the adverts are everywhere. For many businesses Valentine’s Day will pass by without a HR hitch but it’s important to bear in mind that there is one key difference this year – the sexual harassment prevention duty is in effect.
This means that businesses shouldn’t assume that it will be all ‘hearts and flowers’ (or that such things will be wanted in the workplace…). As the duty to prevent sexual harassment is an ongoing one, here’s some things your business might want to think about in the run-up to Valentine’s Day:
Assess
The sexual harassment preventative duty requires employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment from occurring, a key part of this is assessing risk. Make sure your business’s risk assessment is up to date and you have an appropriate plan for reducing risk and implement it. This will be particularly important if your business is planning on marking Valentine’s Day, for example by having an event for staff or celebrating it in some way. Bear in mind the issue of third party sexual harassment, for example if you’re in the hospitality industry and your business is promoting Valentine’s Day events for customers.
Communicate
Make sure your employees understand what sexual harassment is and what sort of conduct is acceptable and unacceptable. Clear communication is vital. A lack of clarity and understanding around sexual harassment could mean that there is a heightened risk around Valentine’s Day of such conduct occurring. With all the ‘hype’ around Valentine’s Day, employees may ‘lower their guard’ and see actions such as repeatedly asking a colleague out, talking about their own sex lives, remarking on the sexual attractiveness of other people, asking colleague’s about who they find attractive or about their sexual preferences or sex lives as ‘fair game’, whereas in reality such things can give rise to sexual harassment even if this wasn’t their intention.
As a quick reminder, sexual harassment is any unwanted conduct of a sexual nature which has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity, or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.
Educate and empower
Business-wide training and refresher training can help to keep the issue of sexual harassment and your business’s anti-sexual harassment stance fresh in the mind of your employees, to reduce the likelihood of instances arising. It can also assist your business in demonstrating compliance with the sexual harassment prevention duty.
If you’ve yet to train your people, including your managers give serious consideration to doing so now. Don’t overlook the importance of training managers – in many businesses they are on the ‘front line’ and need to be able to recognise and prevent sexual harassment, model appropriate behaviours, participate in reduction measures such as ensuring banter remains appropriate and, if the worst happens, deal effectively with sexual harassment complaints. Training can empower your managers and support them to play a vital role in helping to protect your business.
Remember, when it comes to taking reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, what is reasonable will vary from employer to employer, depending on matters such as the risk factors which need to be addressed, the size and nature of the organisation, the sector the organisation operates in, the working environment and the resources available. Whether or not an employer has taken reasonable steps is an objective test and will depend on the facts and circumstances of each situation.