Free tool · the duty in force since 30 October 2026
Could you show what you did?
Since 30 October 2026 you must take all reasonable steps to prevent harassment of your people, including by customers, drivers, contractors and the public. Ten honest answers tell you where you stand. Nothing you tick here leaves this page.
Why a policy alone does not pass
The duty asks what you did, not what you wrote. Evidence looks like dated training records, a route people would actually use, an assessment of where your people are exposed, and something that shows you asked them. Each no above is a gap a tribunal would find in an afternoon, and each one is fixable in a week.
What "all reasonable steps" actually means
The phrase is not defined in a list anywhere, which is what makes it hard to plan against. What tribunals have looked at, and what the EHRC guidance points to, is whether an employer thought about its own particular risks and then did something proportionate about them. A firm with drivers standing in other people's yards has a different risk map from a firm where everyone is in one building, and a step that would be reasonable for one is not automatically reasonable for the other.
In practice it comes down to four things: did you work out where your people are exposed and to whom, did you do something about the gaps you found, did your managers know what to do when someone told them something, and can you show any of it with a date on it.
Third parties are the part most firms miss
The duty covers harassment by people who do not work for you. Customers at a trade counter. Drivers collecting from your yard. Contractors on site for a fortnight. The public. If one of your people is harassed by a customer and you had done nothing to anticipate that it could happen, the failure is yours, not the customer's.
This catches out firms whose staff spend the working day on somebody else's premises. A driver in a customer's yard is still your employee and still your responsibility, and "it happened at their site" is not an answer.
What counts as evidence
A policy is not evidence, it is an intention. What holds up is dated: a risk assessment naming actual roles and actual locations, a record of who was told what and when, a route for raising something that does not run through the person people would be complaining about, and some indication that you asked your own staff rather than assuming.
The last of those is the one almost nobody has. An employer who can produce an anonymous survey of their own workforce, with a date and a response rate on it, is in a materially different position from one who can only produce a document they wrote themselves.
What changes for tribunals
Two other dates matter alongside this one. From 1 October 2026 the window for bringing most tribunal claims doubled from three months to six, so more claims arrive and they arrive later, when memories and paperwork have degraded. From 1 January 2027 the qualifying period for unfair dismissal drops to six months with no cap on the award. The practical effect of all three together is that the paperwork you can produce eighteen months after an event matters more than it used to.
Common questions
Does this apply to small employers?
Yes. There is no small employer exemption. A nine-person firm carries the same duty as a ninety-person one. What is proportionate will differ, but the obligation does not.
Is a written policy enough on its own?
No. The duty is to take reasonable steps to prevent harassment, and a document nobody has read or signed does not demonstrate a step taken. A policy is where you start, not where you finish.
Who is liable if a customer harasses my staff?
You are, if you failed to take reasonable steps to prevent it. The duty expressly covers harassment by third parties, which includes customers, contractors, hauliers and members of the public.
How often should the risk assessment be reviewed?
At least annually, and whenever something changes that alters the risk: a new site, a new shift pattern, a new customer contract that puts your people somewhere different, or an incident.
What if we have never done any of this?
Then you start with an assessment of where your people are exposed, because everything else follows from it. Most firms of this size can get to a defensible position in a few weeks. The gap is usually paperwork rather than practice: managers are often doing sensible things and recording none of them.
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