Third Party Sexual Harassment
Preventing, Identifying and Responding To Third Party Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
Third party sexual harassment occurs when a worker is subjected to unwanted conduct of a sexual nature by someone who is not employed by the business, but who interacts with workers in the course of their duties. A third party could be a customer, client, patient, service user, contractor, supplier or visitor. This post provides practical guidance for owner-managers of SMEs including preventing, identifying, and responding to claims of sexual harassment by third parties. Written specifically for owners of SMEs the guidance is proportionate, practical, and suitable for organisations with limited resources, while reflecting recognised legal and good practice standards.
What Is Third Party Sexual Harassment?
Under the Equality Act 2010, sexual harassment is unlawful. While third-party harassment provisions have evolved, employers in the UK have a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent harassment and to protect workers from foreseeable risks. Since October 2024, UK employers have had a positive duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. This includes harassment by third parties where the risk is known or should reasonably have been anticipated. Failure to meet this duty may result in enforcement action by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and increased liability in Employment Tribunal proceedings.
Third party sexual harassment occurs when a worker is subjected to unwanted conduct of a sexual nature by someone who is not employed by the business, but who interacts with workers in the course of their duties.
This can include:
- Sexual comments, jokes, or innuendo
- Unwanted physical contact
- Sexual gestures or staring
- Requests for sexual favours
- Sexualised messages, emails, or online communications
- Displaying sexual images or materials
Harassment may be a one off serious incident or a pattern of behaviour.
Who Is Protected?
Protection should extend to all individuals engaged by the business, including:
- Employees (permanent, temporary, or casual)
- Workers and agency staff
- Apprentices and trainees
- Interns and volunteers
Why Employers Need to Take It Seriously
Beyond legal compliance, unmanaged harassment can lead to:
- Reduced staff morale and productivity
- Higher absenteeism and staff turnover
- Reputational damage
- Difficulty recruiting and retaining talent
What Changes on 30 October 2026?
From 30 October 2026, employers will face a stronger legal duty to prevent sexual harassment at work.
Currently, employers must take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. From 30 October, this will change to a requirement to take all reasonable steps.
That may sound like a small change in wording, but it raises the standard expected of employers. You will need to be able to demonstrate that you have properly considered the risks within your workplace and taken all the reasonable preventative measures available to you.
Third-Party Harassment
The other significant change concerns harassment by third parties.
From 30 October 2026, employers can become liable where an employee is harassed in the course of their employment by a third party, such as a customer, client, supplier, contractor, patient or member of the public, and the employer failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it.
This means employers need to think beyond how their own employees behave towards one another. If your employees regularly interact with people outside your organisation, you need to consider where those interactions could create a risk of harassment and what you can reasonably do to reduce that risk.
Don’t Wait Until October
Third-party harassment shouldn’t be something you first think about on 30 October.
The existing preventative duty already requires employers to consider the risk of sexual harassment by third parties when deciding what reasonable steps they should take to prevent sexual harassment at work.
The October change strengthens that position and introduces specific employer liability for third-party harassment.
So the question to ask now is:
Where could our employees be exposed to inappropriate behaviour from people outside our business – and what are we doing to prevent it?
Where Could the Risk Arise in Your Business?
Third-party sexual harassment doesn’t just happen in obvious customer-facing environments such as pubs, restaurants or shops.
A third party is simply someone your employees come into contact with through their work who isn’t employed by your business. Depending on what you do, that could include customers, clients, suppliers, contractors, delivery drivers, visitors, patients, service users or members of the public.
Think about how your employees actually work and where interactions with third parties take place.
Risk could arise where employees:
- Work directly with customers or members of the public
- Work alone with customers, clients or service users
- Visit customers’ homes or business premises
- Make deliveries or collections
- Attend trade shows, conferences or networking events
- Work alongside contractors or agency personnel
- Communicate with customers through WhatsApp, text messages, email or social media
- Attend work-related social events where alcohol is available
- Travel or stay away overnight for work
- Deal with complaints or difficult customers
And don’t forget your own premises. Contractors, suppliers, customers and other visitors coming into your workplace can also create a third-party risk.
Look Beyond the Obvious
A risk assessment doesn’t need to predict every possible incident. Its purpose is to make you stop and think about where inappropriate behaviour could realistically occur and what you could reasonably do to prevent it.
Ask yourself:
- Who do our employees come into contact with as part of their work?
- Where and when do those interactions take place?
- Are some employees more exposed to third parties than others?
- Are there situations where employees are working alone or away from colleagues?
- Does alcohol, late-night working or overnight travel increase the risk?
- How do third parties communicate directly with our employees?
- Have employees previously raised concerns about particular customers, clients or contractors?
- Would employees know what to do if a third party behaved inappropriately?
- Would our managers know how to respond?
The answers will help you identify the preventative measures that are appropriate for **your workplace**, rather than simply adopting a generic checklist.
What Should Employers Be Doing Now?
There isn’t a single checklist of measures that will amount to ‘all reasonable steps’ for every employer. What is reasonable will depend on your business, your workforce and the risks your employees face.
The important thing is to take a proactive approach. Don’t wait for an incident or complaint before deciding what you should have put in place.
Look at where and how your employees interact with third parties and identify situations where sexual harassment could reasonably occur.
Consider who may be particularly exposed, whether employees work alone, where interactions take place, how people communicate and whether factors such as alcohol, travel, late-night working or power imbalances increase the risk.
Record what you identify and the measures you decide to put in place.
Make sure your sexual harassment and harassment policies specifically address inappropriate behaviour by third parties.
Employees should understand that they do not have to tolerate sexual harassment simply because the person responsible is a customer, client, supplier or other third party.
Your policy should also explain what employees should do if something happens.
Employees need to know how and where to report concerns, including incidents involving third parties.
Think about whether employees have an alternative reporting route if they don’t feel comfortable approaching their immediate manager.
Most importantly, make sure employees believe that concerns will be taken seriously. A reporting procedure is of little value if people don’t feel confident using it.
Managers need to understand that third-party sexual harassment is a workplace issue and know how to respond when concerns are raised.
They should know when to intervene, how to support an employee, who to escalate concerns to and what immediate action may be appropriate.
They also need to understand that keeping an important customer happy is not more important than protecting an employee from harassment.
Culture matters just as much as having the right policy. Owners and managers need to lead by example, take informal concerns seriously and challenge inappropriate behaviour when they see it. Staff should also be confident that their safety will be prioritised over keeping a customer or protecting a commercial relationship.
Employees need to understand what sexual harassment is, what standards of behaviour apply and what they should do if they experience or witness inappropriate behaviour.
Training and communication should include third-party harassment rather than concentrating solely on behaviour between colleagues.
Prevention doesn’t have to stop at the boundary of your organisation.
Depending on the risks you’ve identified, consider how you can make your expectations clear to customers, clients, suppliers, contractors and other third parties.
That could include contractual provisions, supplier standards, notices, event communications or simply making it clear that inappropriate behaviour towards your employees will not be tolerated.
Where a particular third party has behaved inappropriately before, consider what additional measures are needed to prevent it happening again.
The objective isn’t to create paperwork for the sake of it. It’s to identify the genuine risks in your business and take all reasonable steps to prevent them from becoming incidents.
Common Mistakes Employers Make
Even where employers have policies and procedures in place, problems can arise because of how situations are handled in practice.
Here are some of the mistakes to avoid.
✘ Assuming a Policy Is Enough
A well-written policy is important, but it won’t prevent harassment on its own.
Employees and managers need to understand what the policy means in practice, how concerns should be raised and what will happen when inappropriate behaviour involves someone outside the business.
A policy that nobody reads, discusses or applies is unlikely to provide much protection.
✘ Waiting Until Somebody Complains
Prevention means acting **before** something happens.
If you’ve identified that particular roles, situations or third parties create a greater risk, consider what preventative measures you can put in place rather than waiting for an employee to make a formal complaint.
And remember, the absence of complaints doesn’t necessarily mean the absence of a problem.
✘ Dismissing It as “Customer Banter”
Comments or behaviour don’t become acceptable simply because they come from a customer rather than a colleague.
Be particularly careful with explanations such as:
- That’s just what he’s like,
- He doesn’t mean anything by it, or
- He’s only having a laugh.
If an employee tells you that a customer’s behaviour is making them uncomfortable, take it seriously.
✘ Putting the Customer Before the Employee
When an important customer or client is involved, challenging their behaviour can feel commercially difficult.
But keeping an important customer happy is not more important than protecting an employee from harassment.
Commercial value shouldn’t determine whether inappropriate behaviour is tolerated.
✘ Moving the Employee Instead of Tackling the Problem
Changing shifts, moving somebody to another area or asking another employee to deal with a particular customer might sometimes form part of an immediate protective response.
But simply removing the employee from the situation without addressing the behaviour can send entirely the wrong message.
Ask yourself whether your response is dealing with the harassment or merely dealing with the person who reported it.
✘ Ignoring the “Small” Incidents
Low-level comments, jokes or behaviour can be easy to dismiss in isolation.
But several apparently minor concerns about the same customer, contractor or other third party can reveal a pattern.
Encourage managers to record concerns and make sure information isn’t left sitting in separate notebooks, inboxes or people’s memories.
Something that looks insignificant on its own can look very different when you realise it has happened five times.
What If an Incident Actually Happens?
Even with preventative measures in place, incidents can still happen.
If an employee tells you that they have experienced sexual harassment from a customer, client, contractor or other third party, the important thing is to respond promptly, fairly and sensitively.
The appropriate response will depend on what has happened. Not every incident will require the same action, but managers should follow a clear process.
Protect the Employee
Consider whether any immediate action is needed to protect the employee from further inappropriate behaviour.
That might mean temporarily changing who deals with the third party, ensuring the employee isn’t left alone with them or putting other interim arrangements in place while you establish what has happened.
The priority at this stage is to make sure the employee feels safe and supported.
Listen
Give the employee an opportunity to explain what happened and how it affected them.
Listen without making assumptions, minimising their concerns or immediately trying to explain the other person’s behaviour.
Avoid responses such as “I’m sure they didn’t mean anything by it” or “That’s just what they’re like.”
Explain what will happen next and keep the employee informed.
Establish the Facts
Find out enough information to understand what happened.
Depending on the circumstances, that could include speaking to witnesses, reviewing messages or emails, checking CCTV or obtaining information from the third party involved.
How extensive this needs to be will depend on the seriousness and complexity of the incident.
Decide What Action Is Appropriate
Your response should be proportionate to what has happened and the risk of it happening again.
Possible action could range from making expectations clear to the third party and requiring their behaviour to change, through to restricting contact, changing how they interact with your employees or, in serious cases, refusing them further access to your workplace or employees.
There isn’t an automatic requirement to ban every customer or terminate every commercial relationship following an allegation.
But doing nothing simply because the person involved is an important customer isn’t an appropriate response either.
Record What Happened
Keep an appropriate record of the concern, what you established, the action you took and the reasons for your decision.
This is particularly important with third-party harassment because apparently isolated incidents can reveal a pattern over time.
A future manager needs to be able to discover that this isn’t the first time concerns have been raised about the same person.
Follow Up
Don’t assume the matter is finished simply because you’ve taken action. Make sure the employee is not blamed, minimised or subjected to retaliation for raising the concern. Depending on what has happened, they may also need additional support such as temporary adjustments to duties, time away from work or signposting to appropriate external support.
Check in with the employee, make sure the measures you’ve put in place are working and consider whether anything needs to change in your risk assessment, policies, training or working arrangements. An incident can identify a risk that you hadn’t previously anticipated.
The aim isn’t simply to deal with what has already happened. It’s to reduce the risk of it happening again.
HR Myth
“They’re a customer, so we can’t discipline them; there’s nothing we can do.”
Reality
Correct: you can’t discipline them as an employee. But you can set boundaries, warn them, restrict access, change how they’re dealt with or ultimately decide you don’t want their business. And what you cannot safely do is simply ignore a known risk.
Practical SME Checklist
Before you move on, take a minute to think about your own business.
Can You Answer Yes to These?
☐ Have we identified where employees could be exposed to sexual harassment by third parties?
☐ Does our Sexual Harassment Policy specifically cover customers, clients, contractors and other third parties?
☐ Do employees know how to report a concern and who they can speak to?
☐ Do our managers know what to do if they witness inappropriate behaviour or an employee raises a concern?
☐ Have we made our expectations clear to third parties where appropriate?
☐ Would we be prepared to challenge an important customer or client if their behaviour was inappropriate?
☐ Do we record concerns so that repeated low-level incidents can be identified?
☐ Have we considered what support an affected employee might need?
If you can’t confidently answer yes to all of these, you’ve identified where you may need to do some more work.
Free Employee Guide & Training Record
I’ve created a practical, customisable Word template that you can adapt for your business and use to brief employees about third-party sexual harassment.
- What Is Third Party Sexual Harassment?
- Our Approach
- What You Should Do
- What We Will Do
Final Thought
Preventing third-party sexual harassment isn’t about stopping employees from interacting with customers, clients or other people outside your business.
It’s about recognising where realistic risks exist, taking proportionate steps to reduce them and being prepared to act if inappropriate behaviour occurs.
The important thing is being able to show not simply that you had a policy, but that you identified the risks and took all reasonable steps to prevent them.
How Kea Can Help
You don’t need to turn preventing third-party sexual harassment into a huge HR project. The starting point is understanding where the risks are in your business, what you already have in place and whether there are any gaps.
Kea HR can help you:
- Review your Sexual Harassment Policy to make sure third-party harassment is properly covered.
- Carry out a third-party harassment risk assessment based on how your employees actually work and who they come into contact with.
- Review your reporting arrangements so employees and managers know what to do when a concern is raised.
- Brief and train managers so they can recognise inappropriate behaviour and respond confidently and appropriately.
- Raise employee awareness so everyone understands the standards expected and how to report concerns.
- Deal with an incident if something does happen, including helping you establish the facts, decide on an appropriate response and reduce the risk of it happening again.
You may already have much of what you need in place. Sometimes it is simply a case of identifying the gaps and strengthening what you already have rather than starting again.
Not sure whether you’ve done enough? Let’s have a chat?
|
I can help you review your policies, assess workplace risks, train your managers and ensure you’re taking reasonable steps before October. Speak directly with our CIPD-qualified HR expert with 30+ years’ experience. |
Book Your Free Intro Call |
Get the Latest Legislation News and My Top Tips delivered straight to your inbox |
 |
