What the preventative duty actually asks of employers

Employers are expected to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment at work. In practice, three things decide whether an organisation can show it has done that.\n\n**Risk, considered honestly.** Lone working, client entertaining, alcohol at work events, night shifts and power imbalances between senior and junior staff all raise risk. A risk assessment that finds nothing is usually a risk assessment that did not look.\n\n**Training that reaches everyone.** Staff need to know what is unacceptable and how to report it. Managers need more: how to receive a disclosure, what not to promise, and what must happen next.\n\n**Reporting routes people will actually use.** If the only route is through a line manager, anyone whose concern involves their line manager has nowhere to go.\n\nThe test is not whether you have a policy. It is whether you can show what you did before anything went wrong.