Sexual Harassment Training: Your Complete Guide to Workplace Prevention

On 26 October 2024, the rules of sexual harassment training in the UK changed for good. The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 came into force, replacing decades of after-the-fact liability with a new positive duty: employers must take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment before it happens.

A year on, the early evidence is striking. Acas helpline calls about workplace harassment rose by 39% in the first half of 2025 to 5,583. Sex discrimination claims in employment tribunals tripled, from 457 in 2023/24 to 1,375 in 2024/25. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has already used its enforcement powers against Lidl GB and McDonald's. And yet 45% of business leaders, HR professionals, and the people responsible for managing workplace culture say they are unaware of the new legislation.

That gap matters because the way most organisations train people on sexual harassment is no longer enough. An annual e-learning module that takes 45 minutes and gets forgotten by week two cannot satisfy a "reasonable steps" duty that requires continuous, anticipatory, evidence-based prevention. The training that worked for the old liability regime fails the new one.

This guide walks you through what UK sexual harassment training now needs to look like, what the EHRC actually expects, where most programmes fall short, and how to build something your people will engage with - and that will hold up to scrutiny if a tribunal or regulator ever asks.

What is sexual harassment training? (And why it just changed)

Sexual harassment training is workplace learning designed to help employees recognise, prevent, report, and respond to unwanted conduct of a sexual nature. It covers the legal definitions, the behaviours that fall within them, the obligations on employers and workers, and the processes for raising concerns and handling complaints.

That definition has not changed. What changed in October 2024 is the standard the training must meet.

Before the Worker Protection Act 2023, sexual harassment training in the UK existed mainly to give employers a "reasonable steps" defence if a tribunal claim was brought. The aim was retrospective: prove you had done enough, after the fact. A signed e-learning record was usually treated as sufficient.

Section 40A of the Equality Act 2010 now imposes a proactive duty. Employers must anticipate where sexual harassment might happen in their workplace and take reasonable steps to prevent it. The EHRC is explicit that this duty is "designed to transform workplace cultures" and that compliance is an ongoing process, not a one-off exercise. Crucially, the EHRC can investigate and take enforcement action without any incident having taken place.

That shift has three immediate consequences for training:

1. Training has to be genuinely preventative, not just documented. The question is no longer "did we do training" but "did the training measurably reduce risk."
2. Training has to be regular and refreshed. The EHRC's 8-step guide explicitly tells employers to "keep records of training attendees and ensure that training is regularly refreshed."
3. Training has to cover third parties. The duty extends to harassment by clients, customers, contractors, and members of the public, not just colleagues.

If your current programme is a 30-minute annual module that ticks the completion box and is rarely revisited, it is unlikely to satisfy the new test.

Sexual harassment in UK workplaces: the 2026 picture

The scale of the problem in the UK is well documented and has not improved in any meaningful way over the last decade.

A 2025 Unite the Union survey, the largest of its kind, described workplace sexual harassment in the UK as "endemic" and identified construction, transport, food and drink, and warehousing and logistics as among the highest-prevalence sectors.

Two findings deserve particular attention. The first is that 45% of business leaders, HR professionals, and decision-makers told Culture Shift researchers they were unaware of the Worker Protection Act 2023. The second is that only 39% of UK businesses feel "very prepared" to handle sexual harassment allegations, and 33% have no formal harassment policy in place at all - despite EHRC guidance making clear that policies have been expected of every UK employer since 2017.

Sexual harassment in UK workplaces is not a marginal issue. It is widespread, under-reported, and most employers are not yet ready for the new legal regime.

What UK employers must do now: the legal picture

Three pieces of UK legislation define the current sexual harassment training environment.

Equality Act 2010

Sexual harassment is unlawful under section 26 of the Equality Act 2010, defined as "unwanted conduct of a sexual nature" that has the purpose or effect of violating dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment. Employers are vicariously liable for harassment committed by their workers in the course of employment.

Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023

In force from 26 October 2024, the Act introduced section 40A: a positive duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their workers. Three features of this duty are critical for training:

• It applies to all UK employers regardless of size or sector. There are no exemptions.
• It is anticipatory. Employers must identify risks and act before incidents occur, not only respond after the fact.
• It covers third-party harassment. The duty includes preventing harassment by clients, customers, contractors, and other non-employees.

If a tribunal upholds a sexual harassment claim and finds the duty has been breached, it can uplift compensation by up to 25%. Because there is no cap on harassment compensation in tribunal cases, the uplift can be substantial. The EHRC also has independent enforcement powers and can investigate, issue unlawful act notices, secure binding agreements, and seek injunctions, all without an incident needing to have occurred.

Employment Rights Act 2025

Passed on 18 December 2025, the Employment Rights Act 2025 strengthens the duty further. From an anticipated date of 1 October 2026, employers will be required to take "all reasonable steps" rather than simply "reasonable steps" - aligning with what the EHRC has effectively expected throughout. The Act also extends the duty to cover all forms of third-party harassment under the Equality Act, not only sexual harassment.

EHRC technical guidance and the 8-step plan

The EHRC published its updated technical guidance on 26 September 2024 alongside an Employer 8-step guide: Preventing sexual harassment at work. The 8 steps are:

1. Develop an effective anti-harassment policy - clearly distinguishing different forms of harassment, addressing third-party harassment, and explaining consequences.
2. Engage your staff - through one-to-ones, surveys, exit interviews, and ongoing consultation.
3. Assess and take steps to reduce risk - the EHRC says employers are unlikely to comply with the duty without a sexual harassment risk assessment.
4. Reporting - including consideration of anonymous reporting platforms.
5. Training - all workers should know your policies, what harassment is, what to do if it occurs, and how complaints will be handled. Records should be kept and training regularly refreshed.
6. Handling complaints - clear procedures and prompt action.
7. Address third-party harassment - including specific protocols for customer-facing and public-facing roles.
8. Monitor and evaluate - review complaints data, run anonymous surveys, hold lessons-learned sessions, and update policies, procedures, and training accordingly.

Although the guidance is not legally binding, employment tribunals will take it into account when deciding whether the preventative duty has been met. For UK employers building or refreshing a programme, the 8-step guide is the practical benchmark.

The EHRC has shown it will use its powers. In 2025, Lidl GB entered a legally binding agreement with the regulator after a tribunal found managers were unaware of anti-harassment policies, no risk assessments had been carried out, and action was only taken once complaints were made. McDonald's UK has been under continuing scrutiny following its 2023 EHRC agreement. These cases set the operating reality for every UK employer: doing nothing, or doing the minimum, is no longer a defensible position.

What good sexual harassment training actually covers

Sexual harassment awareness training that meets the new UK standard goes well beyond definitions. The EHRC technical guidance specifies that staff should "understand what harassment and sexual harassment is, know what to do if an incident happens, and what the employer will do when a complaint of harassment is made." A good programme covers eight core areas:

1. Legal definitions and the Equality Act 2010. What sexual harassment is, what it is not, and the difference between sexual harassment, harassment related to a protected characteristic, and victimisation.
2. Examples grounded in the workplace. Verbal conduct (jokes, comments, propositions), physical conduct (unwelcome touching), visual conduct (sexually graphic material), and digital conduct (explicit messages, inappropriate sharing of images). The EHRC guidance is clear that examples must be "relevant to your working environment."
3. Hostile work environment vs quid pro quo. Both are unlawful. Both need to be recognisable.
4. Third-party harassment. Conduct from clients, customers, suppliers, patients, or members of the public. This is now a non-negotiable component.
5. Bystander awareness and intervention. EHRC guidance highlights bystander training as a leading practice. Research consistently finds that bystander intervention training increases confidence in addressing inappropriate behaviour and contributes to long-term cultural change.
6. Reporting routes. Where to raise concerns, what happens next, who handles complaints, what protections exist against retaliation, and the role of any anonymous reporting channels.
7. Manager-specific responsibilities. What managers must do when they receive a disclosure or witness behaviour, and the legal weight that sits on their actions.
8. The wider impact. The mental, physical, career, and organisational consequences of harassment - because abstract compliance content rarely changes behaviour.

The strongest programmes also address intersectionality. The TUC found that 68% of LGBT workers experienced workplace sexual harassment, and disabled women in the LGBT+ community were twice as likely to experience sexual assault. Generic content that ignores who is most at risk will miss the people who need the training most.

Sexual harassment training for managers vs employees

The EHRC and Acas both recommend that managers receive specific, role-tailored training in addition to the general all-staff content. The reason is straightforward: managers carry different responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010, and how they respond when an issue is raised can determine whether the employer meets its duty.

Acas specifically recommends sexual harassment training for managers should be more in-depth than general staff training. From a tribunal perspective, manager training and the records that go with it are likely to be among the first pieces of evidence requested if a "reasonable steps" defence is being tested.

Why annual tick-box training fails - and what works in 2026

Most UK organisations still rely on annual e-learning modules to deliver sexual harassment training. The completion certificate gets filed. The legal box gets ticked. And nothing meaningful changes in the workplace.

The research is unambiguous on why this approach fails.

A long-running body of work from Cornell University's Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research found that traditional sexual harassment training increases employees' knowledge of definitions and policies but produces little measurable change in behaviour. A 2025 systematic review of workplace sexual harassment prevention training reached the same conclusion: one-time training sessions yield short-term knowledge gains that fade quickly, and "compliance-focused" training that prioritises legal protection over behavioural change is largely ineffective.

The reason is cognitive, not motivational. Hermann Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve, replicated repeatedly in modern research, shows that around 50% of new information is forgotten within 20 minutes and only 24% is retained after 31 days. A 45-minute annual module given on the day of training has lost most of its content well before the next tribunal-relevant moment occurs.

The science of what works is equally clear. Microlearning, short bursts of content delivered with spaced repetition, dramatically outperforms annual training on retention. A 2023 Journal of Applied Psychology study found microlearning improves knowledge retention by up to 60% compared to traditional methods. Spaced repetition has been shown to improve long-term retention by up to 200% versus single-session learning. And cognitive load research shows microlearning reduces overload by 37%, leading to better information processing.

This is the strategic argument behind the modern microlearning approach. Sexual harassment is a behaviour-change problem, and behaviour change requires reinforcement. Five minutes a week, every week, on different aspects of the same topic - third-party harassment one month, bystander action the next, manager handling of disclosures the month after - keeps the topic active in workplace consciousness in a way an annual module cannot.

For HR and L&D leaders trying to demonstrate "reasonable steps" - or, from October 2026, "all reasonable steps" - the comparison is no longer about preference. It is about which approach actually meets the duty. To explore this in more depth, read our guide on Mandatory Compliance Training in the UK [2026 Guide] and Simplifying Compliance Training: How to Make Learning Accessible and Engaging for Employees.

How to build (or refresh) your sexual harassment training programme

The EHRC 8-step guide gives the regulatory frame. What follows is the practical implementation playbook for HR and L&D leaders building a modern, defensible programme.

1. Run a sexual harassment risk assessment

The EHRC has stated that an employer "is unlikely to be able to comply with the preventative duty unless they carry out a risk assessment." Look at power imbalances, lone or night working, alcohol-involved environments, customer-facing roles, sectors with historical issues, and parts of the business where complaints have come up before. Document your findings and your action plan.

2. Update your anti-harassment policy

Refresh the policy to reflect post-October 2024 obligations. Make sure it defines sexual harassment, gives examples relevant to your workplace, addresses third-party harassment explicitly, sets out reporting routes, references protections against retaliation, and states the disciplinary consequences. Communicate it actively, not just by burying it in an intranet.

3. Choose your training delivery model

Three options dominate the market:

• Live, instructor-led training. High impact when it includes scenario work and role-play. Expensive at scale and hard to refresh.
• Annual e-learning modules. Easy to procure and track. Largely ineffective for behaviour change, as noted above.
• Continuous microlearning. Bite-sized lessons delivered regularly across the year, ideally on a platform that integrates with your existing systems. This approach aligns most closely with the EHRC's expectation that training is "regularly refreshed" and is supported by the strongest behavioural science.

5Mins.ai is built around continuous microlearning, with CPD-accredited Workplace Conduct & Diversity content covering harassment, DEI, and bullying as part of its compliance training platform. UK organisations using the platform see 95%+ completion rates and 6-10x higher engagement than traditional LMS approaches.

4. Train managers first - and train them differently

Roll out manager-specific content before all-staff training. Managers need to be ready to receive disclosures and respond appropriately by the time the wider workforce is alert to the topic. Cover the section 40A duty, how to handle a disclosure, what to document, conflicts of interest, and how to act on third-party harassment.

5. Embed reporting and ensure psychological safety

Training is only as good as what happens when someone uses it. Make reporting routes visible, named, and trusted. Consider anonymous reporting channels alongside named ones. The EHRC explicitly recommends anonymous reporting as a "reasonable step" worth considering.

6. Measure what matters - not just completion

Track completion, but go further. Measure knowledge through periodic checks. Track engagement (time on content, frequency of access). Run anonymous staff surveys. Monitor complaints data for trends. Run lessons-learned reviews after every resolved case. The EHRC's 8-step guide singles all of these out as evaluation expectations.

7. Iterate

The duty requires that training is regularly refreshed and that policies, procedures, and content are updated when workplace circumstances change. Build a quarterly review cycle into your L&D calendar. Update content when EHRC guidance changes, when legislation moves (the Employment Rights Act 2025 will add to the duty in October 2026), and when your own data shows gaps. For practical advice on running training across distributed teams, see Compliance Training for Remote Teams: Overcoming Challenges with Technology.

Reporting, investigation, and follow-through: the parts training often misses

Most sexual harassment training programmes spend 80% of their content on awareness and 20% on what happens after a disclosure. The EHRC guidance, and tribunal practice, suggest the balance should be closer to 50/50.

Three areas tend to be under-served and they are the ones that matter most when an incident actually occurs:

Receiving a disclosure. The first conversation a disclosing employee has with a manager or HR contact often determines whether they continue to engage with the process. Managers need to know how to listen without dismissing, how to record without leading, what to say about confidentiality (and what not to promise), and how to make sure the person knows what happens next.

Investigating fairly and quickly. Investigations are commonly delayed by capacity, conflicts of interest, or lack of clarity on process. EHRC guidance is explicit that "if sexual harassment has taken place, employers should take action to stop it from happening again" - delay is not neutral.

Protecting against retaliation. TUC research found that 39% of women who did not report harassment cited fear of not being believed; 37% feared damage to workplace relationships; and 25% feared career consequences. Anti-retaliation protections need to be visible, named, and enforced, not just present in policy.

Programmes that include scenario-based learning on these post-disclosure stages, especially for managers, tend to be the ones the EHRC singles out as good practice.