Share
At a busy bar, a bartender is repeatedly subjected to sexual comments from a regular customer.
The shift manager hears them, but the customer spends heavily and the bar is full. The employee is told to brush it off and carry on serving. That response may keep the queue moving, but it leaves the risk untouched.
Hospitality is built around welcoming people, but this cannot mean asking staff to absorb abuse as part of good service. A paying customer’s behaviour can affect an employee’s safety, dignity and ability to work. Treating customer harassment as a service issue alone overlooks the employer’s responsibility to anticipate and reduce workplace risks.
From 30 October 2026, the practical question is not only how a business responds after a complaint. It is whether it has built practical ways to prevent, interrupt and learn from harassment before another incident occurs.
What “all reasonable steps” means for hospitality employers
Since 26 October 2024, employers have been required to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, including by third parties. From 30 October 2026, that duty requires “all reasonable steps”. A separate Equality Act provision now allows employees to bring a claim against their employer for third-party harassment in the course of employment where the employer failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it. “Employment” has a broad meaning under the Act, so protection can extend beyond those working under a contract of employment.
Third parties can include customers, hotel guests, event attendees, suppliers, contractors and members of the public. Harassment can happen in person or online. The new provision covers sexual harassment, harassment related to relevant protected characteristics, and less favourable treatment because someone submits to or rejects sexual harassment or harassment related to sex or gender reassignment.
This does not mean automatic liability every time a customer behaves badly, or require employers to eliminate every possible risk. There is no universal checklist: what is reasonable depends on the organisation’s size and resources, its work and the risks its employees face. The changes apply in England, Wales and Scotland, but not Northern Ireland.
Employers should not wait for a repeat incident before taking prevention seriously. The new third-party provisions do not require earlier incidents or prior knowledge of harassment. A first incident can therefore expose a business to a claim if it has not taken all reasonable steps to prevent it.
The two duties also have different consequences. The sexual harassment preventative duty does not itself give employees a standalone claim, but where a tribunal upholds a sexual harassment claim and finds that duty was breached, compensation can be increased by up to 25%. That uplift is not new; the prevention standard is now higher. The new third-party provision, by contrast, gives employees a direct route to claim against their employer.
Regulations specifying reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment are expected in 2027/28, following consultation. They will not cover other forms of third-party harassment. Businesses should not wait for them: the strengthened duty and new third-party liability apply now.
Why hospitality needs a tailored approach to harassment prevention
Hospitality work brings employees into frequent contact with customers and the public, sometimes in settings that make incidents harder to anticipate or report. Alcohol, late shifts, lone working, hotel rooms, corridors and isolated back-of-house areas all matter. So do private functions, large events, young or inexperienced staff, temporary and agency workers, and the influence customers may have over tips, rotas or online reviews.
A housekeeper responding alone to a guest’s request faces different risks from a restaurant team on a daytime shift. Messages from guests can also continue online after an interaction ends. Risk can vary between businesses and between roles at the same site, so a group-wide policy should be supported by a venue- and role-specific assessment.
Why a policy alone will not prevent workplace harassment
Policies and training matter, but they do not show by themselves that a business has addressed the risks in its venues. If a manager does not know who can refuse service, call security or remove someone, a policy may have little value in the moment.
Preparation should be visible in staffing decisions, reporting routes, manager responsibilities, security arrangements, customer terms and incident follow-up. It should also be clear that commercial value or customer status will not excuse harassment. The test is how the arrangements work on a busy shift, not whether a policy sits on the intranet.
Five practical steps to prevent third-party harassment
Look at where employees interact with customers alone or in higher-risk settings: late shifts, private functions, guest rooms, corridors and isolated work areas. Review complaints, incidents and near misses, and ask staff where they have felt unsafe. Include younger workers, agency and temporary staff, and factors that may discourage reporting, such as reliance on tips or preferred shifts, or fear of upsetting a regular customer. Assess risks beyond sexual harassment, including harassment related to relevant protected characteristics. Turn the findings into an action plan with named owners, timescales and a way to check whether controls work. Revisit the assessment when working patterns or operations change.
Give employees more than one way to raise a concern, including a route outside their immediate management line. Explain the options during induction and make them accessible to agency and temporary staff. Encourage reporting of incidents, near misses and situations where someone felt unsafe, even if they do not want to make a formal complaint. Tell employees what support and follow-up they can expect, and how the business will handle confidentiality.
Managers need clear escalation procedures as well as training. They should know who can warn a customer, end or refuse service, ask someone to leave, remove an event attendee, call security or contact the police. They also need a way to protect an employee from immediate risk, including moving them away without disadvantaging them through lost shifts or poorer rotas. Frontline staff should not be left to negotiate alone with a regular, influential or commercially valuable customer.
Set expectations through suitable channels: signage, booking confirmations, hotel or event terms, membership rules, customer codes of conduct, and supplier or contractor agreements. Explain that harassment of staff may lead to service being refused, someone being asked to leave, or another proportionate response. The wording should be clear and the arrangements practical to enforce. Signs can support the message, but they cannot replace effective staffing, reporting and management procedures.
Keep reliable records of what happened, when and where, who was involved, how the business responded and what support it offered. Note repeat behaviour and any further preventive measures identified. Informal concerns and near misses should not disappear because no grievance was submitted. Reviewing information across shifts, sites and events may reveal patterns, including complaints about the same customer or attendee at more than one venue.
Make harassment prevention part of hospitality operations
The changes do not mean hospitality employers can control every customer interaction. They do mean businesses must take ownership of risks they can reasonably anticipate and act when evidence shows that existing controls are not working. HR and operations teams should review the issue together: policy sets expectations, but rotas, reporting routes, manager authority and follow-up determine whether those expectations hold on shift.
Hospitality employers should review their risk assessments, reporting routes and manager responsibilities now, and keep those arrangements under review. Our Hospitality employment law reforms: your 2026/27 readiness guide brings together key dates and practical actions to consider.
Find out more
Employment Rights Act – trade union workplace access
From 30 October 2026 independent trade unions have been able to seek statutory agreements to access workplaces
