Guide
Equality Act 2010 employer compliance
Your legal duties under the Equality Act 2010 including protected characteristics, discrimination types, reasonable adjustments, harassment prevention, and the new Worker Protection Act 2024 duty to prevent sexual harassment.
The Equality Act 2010 is the primary anti-discrimination law in Great Britain. It protects employees, job applicants, and workers from unlawful discrimination, harassment, and victimisation.
As an employer, you must comply with the Act in all aspects of the employment relationship - recruitment, terms and conditions, promotion, training, dismissal, and post-employment references.
Non-compliance can result in unlimited compensation awards, reputational damage, and regulatory enforcement action.
Protected characteristics
The Act protects individuals from discrimination based on nine protected characteristics. Everyone has at least some of these characteristics, so the Act protects everyone.
Types of unlawful conduct
There are four main types of unlawful conduct under the Equality Act. Understanding these is essential for compliance.
Reasonable adjustments for disabled employees
Section 20 of the Equality Act imposes a proactive duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees and applicants. This is not about "treating everyone the same" - it's about removing barriers that put disabled people at a substantial disadvantage.
Failure to make a reasonable adjustment is treated as discrimination. You don't need to show less favourable treatment - the failure itself is unlawful.
Employer liability for discrimination
Under Section 109, you are liable for discriminatory acts committed by your employees "in the course of employment". This is interpreted very broadly by tribunals and can include behaviour outside normal working hours and away from the workplace.
The statutory defence is to prove you took "all reasonable steps" to prevent the discrimination. This is a high bar and difficult to establish.
Worker Protection Act 2024: Duty to prevent sexual harassment
From 26 October 2024, employers have a new proactive duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees. This applies to harassment by colleagues AND third parties (customers, clients, suppliers).
If a sexual harassment claim succeeds and you've breached this duty, the tribunal must increase compensation by up to 25%.
Customer-facing harassment risks in hospitality and retail
Hospitality and retail workers face significant risks of sexual harassment and other harassment from customers. The Worker Protection Act 2024 makes clear you must take reasonable steps to prevent this third-party harassment.
Specific risks for your sector:
- Front-of-house staff dealing with intoxicated customers
- Lone workers on late shifts
- Customer comments about appearance, requests for phone numbers, unwanted touching
- Racial abuse from customers
Reasonable steps to prevent third-party harassment:
- Train all staff (especially managers) to recognise and respond to customer harassment
- Clear policy that staff can refuse service to abusive customers
- Visible signage stating harassment will not be tolerated
- Incident reporting system and support for affected staff
- Management backing to remove or ban abusive customers
- Buddy systems and safe working practices for vulnerable situations
Simply telling staff to "deal with it" or that "customer is always right" will not protect you from liability. You must have proactive measures in place before incidents occur.
Customer-facing harassment risks in hospitality and retail
Hospitality and retail workers face significant risks of sexual harassment and other harassment from customers. The Worker Protection Act 2024 makes clear you must take reasonable steps to prevent this third-party harassment.
Specific risks for your sector:
- Front-of-house staff dealing with intoxicated customers
- Lone workers on late shifts
- Customer comments about appearance, requests for phone numbers, unwanted touching
- Racial abuse from customers
Reasonable steps to prevent third-party harassment:
- Train all staff (especially managers) to recognise and respond to customer harassment
- Clear policy that staff can refuse service to abusive customers
- Visible signage stating harassment will not be tolerated
- Incident reporting system and support for affected staff
- Management backing to remove or ban abusive customers
- Buddy systems and safe working practices for vulnerable situations
Simply telling staff to "deal with it" or that "customer is always right" will not protect you from liability. You must have proactive measures in place before incidents occur.
Patient discrimination and protected conversations in healthcare
Healthcare employers face unique equality challenges involving both staff rights and patient preferences.
Patient requests based on protected characteristics:
Patients may request healthcare professionals of a particular sex, race, or religion. The Equality Act recognises this is sometimes justified on grounds of privacy, dignity, or religious observance, but you must assess each case carefully.
- Legitimate requests: Intimate examinations (patient can request same-sex clinician), religious/cultural sensitivities for certain procedures
- Unlawful requests: Refusing care from staff based on race, refusing staff based on disability or sexual orientation with no objective justification
Your duties to staff:
- You cannot subject staff to racial, disability, or other harassment from patients without response
- Staff can refuse to comply with discriminatory requests that are not objectively justified
- You must support staff who experience discrimination and have clear escalation procedures
- Consider reasonable adjustments for disabled staff working in clinical settings (equipment, shift patterns, duties)
Balancing patient care and staff rights:
Where patient preference conflicts with staff rights, you must assess whether the request is justified by legitimate aim (privacy, dignity, safety) and whether it's proportionate. Document your reasoning.
Blanket policies permitting patient preferences regardless of justification will expose you to discrimination claims from staff.
Positive action provisions
The Equality Act allows (but does not require) employers to take positive action to address underrepresentation or disadvantage. This is often misunderstood.
Positive action is lawful and voluntary. Positive discrimination (automatically preferring candidates based on protected characteristic) is unlawful.
Employment tribunal remedies
Unlike unfair dismissal claims (capped at £118,223 for 2025/26; cap removed from January 2027), discrimination claims have unlimited compensation. Awards regularly exceed £100,000 for serious cases.
Employees must bring claims within 6 months (extended from 3 months under the Employment Rights Act 2025 from October 2026). ACAS Early Conciliation is mandatory before submitting a tribunal claim.
Compliance checklist for employers
To comply with the Equality Act and minimise liability:
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Implement equal opportunities policy
Written policy covering all protected characteristics, recruitment, promotion, training, pay, and grievances. Communicate to all staff and include in induction.
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Provide regular equality and diversity training
Train all staff on protected characteristics, discrimination types, and acceptable behaviour. Train managers on recruitment, reasonable adjustments, and harassment investigations. Refresh annually.
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Review recruitment practices
Remove bias from job descriptions, use objective selection criteria, diverse interview panels, anonymised applications where appropriate. Do not ask health questions before job offer (Section 60).
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Conduct harassment risk assessment (Worker Protection Act 2024)
Assess sexual harassment risks in your workplace and from third parties. Document findings and implement preventative measures. Review annually and after incidents.
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Establish clear reporting and investigation procedures
Make it easy for staff to report discrimination and harassment. Investigate promptly, impartially, and confidentially. Take appropriate disciplinary action where breach confirmed.
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Consider reasonable adjustments proactively
When employee discloses disability or you become aware of substantial disadvantage, discuss adjustments with employee. Consider Access to Work grants (up to £69,800/year).
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Monitor and address pay gaps
If 250+ employees, publish gender pay gap data annually. Consider ethnicity and disability pay gap analysis. Address unjustified disparities.
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Document decisions and keep records
Document recruitment decisions, promotion decisions, reasonable adjustment discussions, investigation findings. Keep for 6 years minimum (tribunal time limits plus extension).
Common mistakes to avoid
- Asking health questions before job offer: Section 60 prohibits pre-employment health questions except in limited circumstances (reasonable adjustments for recruitment, monitoring, occupational requirements). Wait until conditional offer made.
- Assuming employee will disclose disability: Employees are not obliged to disclose. If you suspect substantial disadvantage, ask if any support needed.
- Blanket policies without justification: "No beards", "no religious dress", "must work Sundays" can be indirect discrimination unless objectively justified.
- Ignoring harassment from customers/clients: Worker Protection Act 2024 requires reasonable steps to prevent third-party harassment. Telling staff to accept it is not sufficient.
- Using positive discrimination in recruitment: Cannot prefer candidate based solely on protected characteristic. Tie-break provision (Section 159) has strict requirements - candidates must be genuinely equal.
- Failing to investigate harassment complaints: Must investigate promptly and impartially. Failure to investigate is itself discriminatory and can lead to constructive dismissal.
- Retaliating against complainants: Victimisation claims are common where employee is treated badly after raising discrimination concern.
Public Sector Equality Duty
If you are a public authority or exercise public functions, you have additional duties under Section 149 (Public Sector Equality Duty). This includes NHS trusts, local authorities, police, schools, and some arm's-length bodies.