Harassment at work

The seriousness of harassment at work cannot be overlooked. It not only dramatically affects the victims’ lives, but it can also lead to employment tribunal claims, plunging retention rates and declining staff morale across a business.

As an employer, it’s your legal responsibility to address harassment in the workplace, but to do so properly, you first need to understand what it looks like and how to react if it happens.

We’ll cover everything you need to know about harassment at work in this guide so you can be as prepared as possible as a business to prevent it and, if necessary, deal with it in an appropriate manner.

If you are looking for assistance with any matter related to workplace harassment, don’t hesitate to seek HR advice via our expert-led employment law advice line—help is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

What is harassment at work?

The legal definition of harassment is when someone has violated a person's dignity and created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. What makes harassment unlawful is when it takes place at work.

This can include verbal, physical, physiological or sexual harassment from anyone at the same company and it doesn’t have to be directed at the victim either—people can feel threatened or upset by indirect harassment, too.

Such incidents can occur in person or online, so they can affect people who work from home as well. They can take place as an isolated incident or evolve over time, so it’s absolutely vital that employers have the right procedures in place to recognise, report and react to all kinds of harassment in the workplace.

Examples of harassment in the workplace

Harassment at work can take many forms and one of the greatest dangers is that some of them can fly under the radar. This could be down to the conniving behaviour of the person or people committing the harassment or the reluctance of the victim to report it or something else.

The many different types of harassment include:

• Threats or abuse (spoken or written)

• Unwelcome sexual advances

• Offensive emails or posts on social networks

• Offensive emblems or flags

• Physical behaviour like gestures or facial expressions

• Pranks, jokes or teasing

• Exclusion or victimisation

• Insulting language

• Rumour spreading directed at an individual

• Undermining a competent employee with constant criticism

Your employees could also feel harassed by unwanted behaviour related to their age, sex, disability, race, religion or beliefs, sexual orientation and more.

According to a recent TUC poll an astonishing 66% of young women have experienced sexual harassment, bullying or verbal abuse at work in the UK—so the matter is as urgent as ever.

Your legal obligation to address harassment at work

Harassment is illegal under the Equality Act 2010 and both the perpetrator and the employer can be held responsible for it in the UK. It’s crucial to be able to recognise it and respond to it in the right ways, so grasping the legal definition is the first port of call—in Britain, it is defined as follows:

Even if you don’t hear or see the harassment take place or you’re not aware of it for some time, under the law you are at fault and can be held accountable, if one of your staff members harasses another.

So, it’s essential that you have clear and robust employee reporting lines for reporting harassment in your business.  

This is especially important if the harasser happens to be their line manager or somebody more senior—a victim of harassment needs to have the right channels available to them to take action when they feel ready to do so.

What are the impacts of harassment on your employees and business?

The effects of harassment in your workplace can be happening before you even know it—the victim may lose their morale and start missing deadlines, KPIs and entire days at work. They might even choose to hand in their notice rather than confront the harassment they’ve been undergoing for fear of the repercussions.

If you do know about it, but your policies make it difficult for both your business and a harassed employee to address it properly, it can negatively impact everything from people and productivity to retention and reputation.

An employee may feel particularly aggrieved and, if the correct procedures aren’t in place to deal with it internally, start an employment tribunal, which can incur significant costs for your business.

It’s easy to see how much of a knock-on effect such a situation can have on your employees and your business, so having the right bullying, harassment or victimisation policies in place can help you stay in line with employment law and, crucially, look after the mental and physical well-being of your staff.

How to identify harassment in your business

Calling out harassment in the workplace can only happen once everyone understands what it looks and sounds like. You should make the meaning of workplace harassment clear in your policies, so your employees have a sound understanding of what it constitutes.

When it comes to staff training, you’ll find a course on equality and discrimination in our BrightLearn e-learning software.

You can communicate that whatever a person says, writes or does is workplace harassment if it violates the dignity of a co-worker or makes them feel intimidated, degraded, or humiliated because of such conduct.

There is no need for the person who feels harassed to have complained about the behaviour in the past either—harassment is harassment, and one instance is too many, so it’s crucial that it’s called out when it happens.

How to prevent and respond to harassment at work

With a clear, zero-tolerance definition of harassment in writing, you and your employees will be well-equipped to look out for the tell-tale signs and stamp it out before it becomes a more significant problem.

Some of the behaviours to look out for include:

• Intimidating behaviour, such as veiled threats

• Acts of deceit—not telling the truth or creating false hopes

• Isolating or excluding employees from colleagues

• Shaming staff members—making them feel like they’re to blame for things they aren’t

• Managers or company directors having mood swings

• Aggression—this includes both physical and verbal abuse

• Belittling, such as repeatedly disparaging an employee’s work

• Blocking career advancement unfairly

If you see one or more of these behaviours on display, there might be a case for a harassment complaint.

Responding to harassment complaints includes:

Speaking directly to the person responsible in the first instance to explain the issue could help prevent it from happening again, but the means to report it more officially should be in place if that doesn’t work.

You need create an open and fair atmosphere across the organisation to give employees their right to report harassment if it happens to them—it is against the law, after all.

They should be able to refer to your policy documentation for clear instructions on how to raise the complaint. You can find a template for a personal harassment policy and procedure document in our HR document library.

Have clear procedures in place to work through with all the involved parties so everybody knows where they stand—lay out each step of the investigation and make sure everyone has visibility of your grievance procedure.

Another critical point is to ensure that there is employee wellbeing support in place for victims of harassment, such as access to counselling and the ability to make changes to their working arrangements.

As an employer, you are responsible for the mental and physical health of your employees while they are actively working for you, so the gravity of this matter can’t be understated.

Get help with harassment issues in your business

Harassment at work can be a serious issue that requires legal assistance, so if you’re worried about any particular incidents in your organisation, you should get in touch now for help: 0800 783 2806.

Our 24/7 employment law advice line can help you with any issues regarding harassment, so don’t hesitate to book a demo if you’d like to improve how you look after the wellbeing of your employees as a business.