Protection from harassment by third parties

The EA 2010 strengthened the position of workers at risk of bullying and violence by introducing a specific statutory duty on employers to prevent harassment by third parties, such as customers and suppliers. Under the EA 2010, employers are fixed with liability for failing to prevent the harassment of their staff if it happens three times and the employer knows about it and fails to take reasonable steps to prevent it.

Reasonable steps could include practical measures such as “zero tolerance” posters, reporting abusive visiting suppliers to their own employer, barring an abusive customer, improving security measures for vulnerable staff through practical responses which could include re-organising working practices, buddy-pairing, alarms, better building design, better lighting and GPS tracking devices (where appropriate and after proper consultation with staff).

Even though the employer’s obligation is only to take reasonable steps to protect staff from third party harassment, the government has announced that it believes this duty is too difficult for employers to comply with, because third parties are beyond the control of employers. The government says it only knows of one tribunal case which relies on this new duty. The case concerned a care home worker sexually harassed by a resident in circumstances where the care home took no steps to deal with the situation even though it was aware of it. The claimant succeeded in her claim.