Harassment by third parties · Transport and haulage

Your drivers work on other people's sites. The harassment change still lands on you.

Your drivers spend the day in yards, loading bays and gatehouses you don't run. They deal with people you've never met and have no say over. When something happens out there, you're often the last to hear.

What's changing?

The government has announced that from 30 October 2026, you'll be liable when one of your staff is harassed at work by someone you don't employ, unless you took all reasonable steps to prevent it. That covers harassment related to any relevant protected characteristic, not only sexual harassment. There's no cap on discrimination compensation.

For a haulier, that's most of the people your drivers meet in a day. They work for your customers, and you can't discipline a single one of them.

Where does it happen?

Picture where your drivers are on their own. Waiting for a bay. At a gatehouse at 5am. Being signed off by a customer's warehouse staff. At a delivery address where the customer is a member of the public. Then there's what gets said in a yard and called banter.

What could you show?

Say a driver complained tomorrow. The questions would be plain enough. Had you looked at the risk on customer sites? Does your policy say what a driver does when it's someone else's staff? Would they know how to report it from the road? Have you ever asked them?

If the answer to those is no, there's still time to change it before 30 October.

What we do

We build your staff handbook, a harassment risk assessment that covers the places your drivers actually work, and an anonymous survey of your staff. Then we keep them current. Everything's dated and filed, built to show what you did, when you did it and why. It's all done remotely. No calls.

It isn't legal advice, and it doesn't handle a complaint once it's been made. If you've got one live now, speak to a solicitor.