New legislation impacting your business

Whilst legal cases relating to harassment are thankfully not common, but they can be extremely challenging to handle, can have far-reaching repercussions, can cause substantial stress and can be difficult to resolve. Often, it leads to one of the parties leaving their job, which can have long-term negative impacts on their mental health and earnings. Tribunal cases are typically complex, lengthy, and costly.

What is harassment in the workplace?

Workplace harassment refers to any unwelcome and harmful behaviour directed at an individual or a group of employees that creates a hostile, intimidating, or offensive work environment. This can include verbal, physical, or visual conduct based on protected characteristics such as race, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, disability, or other legally protected status.

Clients could seek the help of companies that excel in Human Resources advice and/or Health & Safety companies as some offer those services to their clients.

What is changing and what does it mean for business owners?

Starting from 26th October 2024, The Worker Protection (Amendment of the Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 is placing greater responsibility on businesses to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent harassment in the workplace. These changes are not intended to be merely a ‘tick box’ exercise; employers are expected to implement a management strategy to ensure that proactive and positive steps are being taken to address harassment at work.

Directors & Offices Insurance

Directors and Officers (D&O) insurance is a type of liability insurance designed to protect individuals serving as directors or officers of a company from personal losses if they are sued for alleged wrongful acts while performing their duties. This insurance can also cover legal fees and other costs the organization may incur as a result of such legal action.

D&O can also be known as Management Liability Insurance, and should provide comprehensive protection against the costs of defending litigation and any damages that may result from actions against senior managers, including directors, officers and partners.

This cover is crucial for safeguarding the personal assets of directors and officers and ensuring the continuity of the business.

Our advice

We recommend that any business with employees (both permanent and contractors) review their business insurance to make sure they are protected against the new legislation. For businesses that are limited companies, we recommend taking out a Directors & Officers policy that can protect from claims being made, and the resulting financial costs, such as fines and legal fees.

If you would like to find out more and want to speak to a specialist in the Howden Commercial Team then please contact Kevin Henman, Commercial Account Executive from our Bletchley branch, on 01908 622700.