Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Gender pay gapSexual harassmentPregnancy and maternity discriminationMaternity and paternity

More protection needed against sexual harassment by third parties

by Ashleigh Webber 23 Jan 2018
by Ashleigh Webber 23 Jan 2018

The law should be strengthened to protect women from sexual harassment by third parties, as well as colleagues, a gender equality charity has recommended.

The Fawcett Society’s Sex Discrimination Law Review, which has looked at gaps in current legal provisions to protect women, suggests that employers should be held responsible for sexual harassment by third parties, such as customers and contractors, if they were aware of a previous incident of harassment and failed to take reasonable steps to prevent it from happening again.

It says the protections for employees provided under section 40 of the Equality Act 2010, which was repealed in 2013, should be strengthened and brought back into law. Section 40 considered an employer liable for sexual harassment if it was aware of two incidents of harassment and failed to prevent a third.

Sexual harassment

Policy on dealing with harassment complaints

Sexual harassment: the rise of historical allegations

Sam Smethers, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said: “The time has now come for a greater responsibility and accountability to be placed onto organisations to prevent harassment and discrimination in the first place.

“If we believe that gender equality is good for business, then we must also believe that discrimination and harassment are bad for business. The chances are this will be happening to some extent in most workplaces, so let’s move towards proactive action and require employers to do something about it.”

The report also looked at measures to help address the gender pay gap and recommended that civil penalties are introduced for companies that fail to report their gender pay information. It said that by 2020 the threshold for gender pay gap reporting should be lowered to incorporate organisations that employ 50 people.

It found that current reporting requirements do not give employers sufficient context to identify the causes of their gender pay gap and suggested that reports should be broken down by age, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and whether the employee is part time or full time.

It claimed that looking at the gender pay gap in isolation is “too blunt a measure” and will “not reflect the challenges faced by women with multiple protected characteristics”.

It said: “These [current] headline figures will not give employers sufficient information to identify the causes of the gender pay gap within their organisation. Nor will they be detailed enough to identify causes of unequal pay, or enable women to identify a comparator or make equal pay claims.

“There is no requirement to publish salary ranges for the salary quartiles, so employees will not even be able to tell which quartile they are in.”

The report also suggested several measures to bolster the rights of new parents, including extending new mothers’ protection against unfair dismissal until six months after their return to work, and raising current statutory maternity pay to the “real” Living Wage (currently £8.75 per hour across the UK and £10.20 per hour in London) for 36 hours per week.

The recommendations were welcomed by Maria Miller MP, chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, who said there was still significant work to be done to address the gender pay gap and sexual harassment by third parties and colleagues.

Miller said: “We need a revolution in the workplace to ensure fairness for women, men and their families. Closing the gender pay gap, improving take up of shared parental leave and providing more opportunities for flexible working all play an important role as our own reports have found.”

Ashleigh Webber
Ashleigh Webber

Ashleigh is editor at OHW+ and HR and wellbeing editor at Personnel Today. Ashleigh's areas of interest include employee health and wellbeing, equality and inclusion and skills development. She has hosted many webinars for Personnel Today, on topics including employee retention, financial wellbeing and menopause support. Prior to joining Personnel Today in 2018, she covered the road transport sector for Commercial Motor and Motor Transport magazines, touching on some of the employment and wellbeing issues experienced by those in road haulage.

previous post
CBI wants “jobs first” Brexit deal within 70 days
next post
Ofsted cannot cope with apprentice trainer workload

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

You may also like

EU member states to make carer work-life balance...

5 Aug 2022

Civil Service mean gender pay gap narrows to...

1 Aug 2022

MoD reveals zero-tolerance approach to sexual misconduct

20 Jul 2022

Women over 50 hesitant to progress due to...

19 Jul 2022

Paid neonatal leave bill receives government backing

15 Jul 2022

The risks of sexual harassment in the metaverse

14 Jul 2022

Campaign highlights sexism and misogyny in healthcare

11 Jul 2022

Employment law changes for 2022 and beyond: update...

1 Jul 2022

Gender pay gap ‘won’t close until 2151’

27 Jun 2022

Six findings from the national living wage review

22 Jun 2022
  • 6 reasons why work-based learning is better than traditional training PROMOTED | A recent Fortune/Deloitte survey found that 71% of CEOs are anticipating that this year’s biggest business disrupter...Read more
  • Strengthening Scotland’s public services through virtual recruiting PROMOTED | This website is Scotland's go-to place for job seekers looking to apply for roles in public services...Read more
  • What’s next for L&D? Enter Alchemist… PROMOTED | It’s time to turn off the tedious and get ready for interactive and immersive learning experiences...Read more
  • Simple mistakes are blighting the onboarding experience PROMOTED | The onboarding of new hires is a company’s best chance...Read more
  • Preventing Burnout: How can HR help key workers get the right help? PROMOTED | Workplace wellbeing may seem a distant memory...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2022

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2022 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+