The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 changed the compliance question for employers from reactive to proactive.

Before October 2024, the legal standard was whether an employer had taken reasonable steps to prevent harassment – a defence invoked after a complaint had been made.

The positive duty introduced by the Act requires employers to take those steps before harassment occurs. For HR and compliance teams, the shift from “did we respond adequately?” to “what did we do to stop it happening?” demands a different approach to planning, training and documentation.

Proactive prevention: what the EHRC expects

The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s statutory guidance on the positive duty sets out a clear expectation: proactive prevention is an ongoing organisational responsibility, not a one-time compliance exercise. The EHRC identifies a cycle of activity – assess, act, evaluate – that employers should follow continuously rather than treating as a project with an end date.

The EHRC has indicated it will use its enforcement powers where employers fall demonstrably short of the positive duty. Those powers include conducting investigations, issuing unlawful act notices, entering into binding agreements and, ultimately, applying to court for an injunction. Enforcement action is not limited to organisations that have faced a harassment complaint – the EHRC can investigate an employer’s arrangements proactively where it has reasonable grounds to suspect a breach.

Step 1: identifying harassment risks through assessment

The EHRC guidance makes risk assessment a core component of proactive prevention. Employers are expected to identify the specific environments, roles and working patterns that create elevated harassment risk – and to document that assessment as the basis for targeted action.

Common risk factors identified by employers in practice include:

• Client or customer-facing roles with power imbalances or entitlement expectations – particularly prevalent in financial services, hospitality, legal and retail sectors
• Lone working or remote working arrangements where conduct is less visible to colleagues and managers
• Hierarchical structures or high-status relationships that reduce the likelihood of challenges to inappropriate behaviour
• Night-time or event-based working environments
• Roles involving regular contact with third parties – contractors, suppliers, members of the public – where the employer has limited direct control over conduct

The WPA 2023 extended the positive duty to cover third-party harassment. Employers must therefore assess not only the risk of colleague-on-colleague harassment but also harassment by clients, customers and other third parties – and take steps proportionate to those risks.

Step 2: taking action – training as a core preventative measure

Once harassment risks have been identified, employers must take action proportionate to those risks. The EHRC guidance consistently identifies manager training as one of the primary preventative measures – and distinguishes between training that creates awareness and training that changes behaviour.

Awareness is not enough

An all-staff eLearning module that confirms workers have read the harassment policy contributes to the evidence base. It does not, by itself, constitute a reasonable preventative step for managers. Managers are expected to recognise harassment when they see or hear it, respond correctly when a worker raises a concern, understand the confidentiality requirements, escalate appropriately, and avoid responses that constitute retaliation. Those capabilities require facilitated, scenario-based training – not policy acknowledgement.

What manager training for proactive prevention covers

Training that genuinely equips managers to prevent harassment proactively should address:

• The legal definition of sexual harassment under the Equality Act 2010 and the types of conduct that meet it – including conduct framed as banter, jokes or compliments
• The employer’s positive duty under the WPA 2023 and what it requires of managers personally
• Third-party harassment: what it is, how to recognise it, and how to respond
• How to create an environment where workers feel safe raising concerns – the cultural dimension of prevention
• How to receive and handle a disclosure correctly: confidentiality, immediate protective action, escalation pathways
• The whistleblowing protections that attach to harassment disclosures under ERA 2025, and how to avoid inadvertent detriment
• Documentation standards: what to record, when and how

Bystander training

Some organisations extend proactive prevention to include bystander training – equipping all workers, not just managers, to intervene safely when they witness harassment. While not a specific EHRC requirement, bystander training contributes to the cultural change dimension of the positive duty and strengthens the argument that the employer took the prevention obligation seriously. For managers, bystander intervention skills are part of the broader toolkit for creating a speak-up culture.

Step 3: policy and environment

Training does not operate in isolation. The EHRC guidance identifies the working environment and organisational policy as complementary pillars of proactive prevention. An up-to-date policy that accurately describes the WPA 2023 positive duty, provides clear reporting routes that do not require the worker to go to their direct line manager, and sets out the protections available to reporters is the structural context in which trained managers operate.

HR teams should review harassment policies to ensure they reflect the current legal position post-WPA 2023 and ERA 2025, including the explicit inclusion of sexual harassment as a qualifying whistleblowing disclosure from 6 April 2026. A policy that does not reflect the current law undermines the training built around it.

Step 4: evaluating and updating the approach

The EHRC’s assess-act-evaluate cycle requires employers to monitor whether their preventative approach is working. Evaluation mechanisms include:

• Tracking whether harassment reports are being made through internal channels – a significant decline may indicate that the reporting culture has deteriorated or that workers have lost confidence in how concerns are handled
• Reviewing whether managers who have received training are applying it correctly – through supervision, case review or post-incident analysis
• Updating risk assessments where working patterns, environments or workforce composition change
• Refreshing training content following legislative changes – content that predates the WPA 2023 positive duty or the ERA 2025 whistleblowing amendments is no longer adequate
• Reviewing training completion rates and identifying cohorts of managers who have not yet received current training

The CIPD’s 2024 research found that 81% of employers believed they were doing enough to address harassment and bullying, while only 36% of employees felt their concerns were being resolved. That gap is not primarily a policy gap – most organisations have adequate written policies. It is an implementation gap, driven by the difference between what policies say and what trained managers do in practice.

Documenting the proactive approach

Proactive prevention generates its own compliance record. Employers who follow the EHRC’s assess-act-evaluate cycle and document each stage are in a significantly stronger evidential position than those who rely on a policy and a historic training exercise. The documentation that supports a proactive prevention case includes:

• The harassment risk assessment and any updates to it
• Training needs analysis mapped to identified risks
• Delivery records for manager training – including content, format, date, provider and accreditation status
• Evidence of policy review and updates, with dates
• Records of evaluation activity – completion rates, incident data, culture survey results where available
• Evidence of refresh training following legislative changes

Organisations that can produce this documentation in response to a tribunal claim or EHRC investigation demonstrate that proactive prevention was a genuine, sustained programme – not a paper exercise conducted after the fact.

Related resources

Legal Obligations for Manager Training in the UK (hub): https://www.safecall.co.uk/resource/legal-obligations-for-manager-training-in-the-uk/

Worker Protection Act 2023 – Manager Training Guide: safecall.co.uk/training/worker-protection-act-2023-manager-training-guide/

Tackling Sexual Harassment – Manager Training: https://www.safecall.co.uk/service/prevention-of-sexual-harassment-training/

Worker Protection Act 2023 – What Managers Must Know: safecall.co.uk/training/worker-protection-act-2023-manager-training-guide/

Safecall’s Tackling Sexual Harassment training for managers

Safecall’s Tackling Sexual Harassment – A Guide for Managers is a CPD Certified facilitated course built around the proactive prevention framework of the Worker Protection Act 2023. It equips managers to assess risk, intervene when they witness harassment, handle disclosures correctly and document their actions to the standard tribunals and the EHRC expect. Available online (2.5 hours) or in person (half day), with bespoke tailoring for organisations with sector-specific risk profiles or third-party harassment exposures.

Find out more about Safecall’s training courses at safecall.co.uk/service/compliance-training/ or contact the team at learning@safecall.co.uk | +44 (0) 191 516 7720

Sources and further reading

Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023: legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/51

Equality and Human Rights Commission – Technical Guidance on Sexual Harassment and Harassment at Work: equalityhumanrights.com/guidance/sexual-harassment-and-harassment-work-technical-guidance

Equality and Human Rights Commission – Employer guidance: preventing sexual harassment at work: equalityhumanrights.com/guidance/employer-guidance-preventing-sexual-harassment-work

Employment Rights Act 2025: legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025

Equality Act 2010: legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15

CIPD – Harassment and Bullying at Work, 2024: cipd.org/uk/knowledge/reports/harassment-bullying-work/ACAS – Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: acas.org.uk/sexual-harassment