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Since the Employment Rights Act received Royal Assent in December 2025, employers have been asking the same practical questions about what changes, when, and what to do next. Here are the short answers.
What duty do employers already have, before the 2025 Act changes take effect?
Since 26 October 2024, employers have had a proactive duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees in the course of their employment. That means employers are expected to assess risk and take preventative action, not wait for an incident before responding.
What actually changes under the Employment Rights Act 2025?
There are three key changes:
- from 6 April 2026, sexual harassment disclosures are expected to be expressly protected under whistleblowing law;
- from October 2026, the duty to prevent sexual harassment is expected to rise from “reasonable steps” to “all reasonable steps”;
- also from October 2026, employers are expected to face direct liability for harassment by third parties where they failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it.
A further change is expected in 2027, when regulations may specify what counts as “reasonable steps” for sexual harassment prevention.
Does the strengthened preventive duty apply to all forms of harassment?
No. The section 40A preventive duty applies to sexual harassment specifically. It does not extend that particular duty to all other forms of harassment related to protected characteristics.
That said, the separate third-party harassment reform expected in October 2026 is broader and is expected to cover sexual harassment and harassment related to the Equality Act’s relevant protected characteristics.
What does “all reasonable steps” mean in practice?
It is expected to be a more demanding standard than the current one. In practical terms, employers will need to be able to show there were no further reasonable steps they could have been expected to take, given their size, resources, working environment, and risk profile.
This does not mean every conceivable step. It does mean employers should expect closer scrutiny of whether their policies, training, reporting channels, and risk controls are actually working.
Can employees bring a standalone tribunal claim for breach of the preventive duty?
No. A breach of the preventive duty is not a standalone employment tribunal claim. But if a claimant succeeds in a sexual harassment claim, a tribunal may uplift compensation by up to 25% if it also finds that the employer breached the duty. The EHRC may also take separate enforcement action.
Do we need to wait for the 2027 regulations before acting?
No. Employers should not wait. The stronger standard is expected to apply before those regulations arrive, so employers should be using the current EHRC and ACAS guidance as their baseline now.
What should employers be doing now about third-party harassment?
Start with the practical controls you can already put in place:
- review supplier, contractor, and client terms;
- make your zero-tolerance position visible on-site and online;
- ensure staff know how to raise concerns quickly and safely;
- train managers on how to handle third-party complaints;
- assess higher-risk settings, such as customer-facing environments, client sites, travel, and work events.
No specific third-party-harassment regulations have yet been announced, so employers should not assume further detail is coming before the duty is expected to take effect.
Does every report of sexual harassment become a protected disclosure under whistleblowing law?
No. The 2025 Act is expected to make sexual harassment an express category of qualifying disclosure, but the normal whistleblowing rules still apply. That means the usual statutory requirements, including the public interest test and the proper disclosure route, still need to be met.
What about NDAs and settlement agreements?
The Act also contains restrictions on confidentiality clauses in agreements between employers and workers in harassment and discrimination matters. That reform is not yet in force, and key details still depend on consultation and secondary legislation. Employers should review their templates now, but should not assume the final framework is settled.
What are three important things to do now?
- Refresh your sexual harassment risk assessment.
- Update your whistleblowing and reporting framework ahead of April 2026.
- Make sure your harassment prevention training is current, practical, and well documented.
How Ethena helps
Ethena helps employers stay current on major workplace compliance changes so they can focus on the rest of their responsibilities.
Our Harassment Prevention training is designed to help organisations meet the “all reasonable steps” standard:
- Interactive, scenario-based learning grounded in real workplace situations
- Third-party harassment scenarios for various roles
- Bystander intervention training that helps workers speak up when they witness inappropriate behaviour
- Regularly refreshed content that reflects current UK guidance
- Completion tracking and records to support internal documentation needs
With a library of 200+ customisable courses and a 93% learner approval rating from over 5 million pieces of learner feedback, Ethena is designed to help organisations turn compliance requirements into training people actually learn from.
