Paying for Your Customers' Comments

For some time now, employers have had a duty to protect staff from harassment by colleagues. Not difficult, where both parties are employees and subject to the employers rules of employment.

From April 2008, employers will have to protect their staff from harassment by customers and other parties with whom the staff have contact with during their work. This is an extremely wide class of persons, including not just customers, but for example, individuals making deliveries, contractors working on site, work networking events and people met by an employee in the course of their duties.

Employers have to take ‘reasonable steps’ to protect staff from sexual harassment. Where the employer is aware that two incidents have already taken place, and reasonable steps are not taken, an employee can claim damages from their employer on the third occasion. The amount of compensation which could be awarded is uncapped.

It is not necessary for the sexual harassment to come from the same individual. Three separate instances of harassment could lead to a claim under the Sex Discrimination Act

Employers will face challenges where staff are engaged in client facing roles, including retail, leisure, waiting and public sector roles. These are roles are often filled by female staff, and the availability of alcohol may increase the risk of comments which ‘violate their dignity or create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment’.

There will be many ways for an employer to take ‘reasonable steps’ to protect their staff, but we suggest there are at least three components an employer must address; the policy itself, communication of the policy, and steps taken to prevent or deal with comments as they arise. We predict that such policies will become part of a company’s terms of trade, making it the responsibility of contracting parties to effectively manage the behavior of their staff.

Please contact us for assistance in formulating your policies, or for advice on how best to implement or communicate them.

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