Remember Remember the 5th of November…we were delighted to spend the evening launching our #SpeakUp campaign in partnership with M Group Services and kindly hosted by Pinsent Masons. The event was the first of it’s kind for WUN, created specifically for HR and People leaders of the Partners of WUN in a roundtable discussion and dinner setting.

The timing of the #SpeakUp campaign launch was purposeful, due to the recent amendments to the Worker Protection Act as part of the Equality Act, the changes now impact businesses and their people more than ever.

#SpeakUp was born following a busy event season in the final quarter of 2023, where a number of the WUN team members attended events. Many of us witnessed and some having been subjected to sexual harassment, we knew that there was more that we could be doing. As a network that was created as a group of women that wanted to support other women in the sector to join, stay and thrive, we got to work to create a series of events, policies and supporting resources. Event season should be a time that you’re able to celebrate successes, not harbouring fear of what might happen.

The HR Roundtable discussion was an opportunity for the HR Leaders from our supportive partners to come together to share learnings, best practice, advice and support to others leading on the implementation of new processes, procedures and governance with the legislation changes.

With the support of the legal expertise from Pinsent Masons, we delved into the upcoming changes to employer’s duties around preventing sexual harassment and the consensus around the table was that a number of principles needed to be in place before touching any guidelines and policies.

• The Executive leading the organisation needs to be a voice leading the conversation. Without executive sponsorship, the rest of the organisation is less likely to follow suit or realise the gravitas and importance of creating a workplace free of sexual harassment and the consequences should anything occur in a workplace environment. By doing so, this empowers the teams to recognise the importance of creating and fostering a safe working environment.
• The importance of creating and cultivating a culture where individuals feel that they can #SpeakUp. This is imperative to ensure that the culture enables employees to feel empowered and safe to raise concerns or complaints, particularly when it comes to sexual harassment that can leave individuals feeling ashamed, embarrassed or fearful after the event.
• Robust processes and procedures for employees to follow in the event of experiencing sexual harassment. For many, knowing what, when and how to raise concerns can be the biggest hurdle when having experienced situations that typically create a lot of discomfort. With clear guidelines and processes to follow, the opportunity to eradicate future events, as well as the ability to further understand what’s happened and to react appropriately requires clear governance.
• The importance of education for leaders and employees across the business to clearly understand what constitutes as acceptable and not acceptable behaviours. Ignorance to varying situations can often prevent action being taken, so by educating your leaders to recognise, react appropriately and follow your processes and procedures to come to a resolution is paramount.
• The power of reverse mentoring. Reverse mentoring gives leaders the opportunity to really access the experiences of others across the business, and by creating a safe space for conversation to happen, the likelihood of uncovering the challenges faced by colleagues and for action to be taken prior to an incident occurring is hugely increased through this methodology.

Following the success of the in-person event, we hosted a virtual WUNforALL session for all WUN members to attend and access in partnership with E.ON and supported by M Group Services.

The online session facilitated by Julia Stichling, WUN advocate was a skills session intended to arm WUN members with the tools and confidence to #SpeakUp.

A link to recording of the session can be found below

WUN Partner E.ON shared their experiences of their own #SpeakUp campaign implementation across the organisation. Being 2 years on from their initial launch, the team share the importance of the support of their CEO in creating this, whilst sharing best practice for their continuously improving and ongoing campaign.

The interactive session gave the audience the opportunity to engage and share their thoughts throughout the session via Slido.

At the start of the session, only 49% of the attendees noted that they felt confident to speak up in a work-related setting if they had strong support in the room with a further 33% feeling that they could speak up alone with the right context.

A staggering 84% of attendees shared that they had observed discrimination in the workplace.

On conclusion of the skills session, 91% of attendees expressed that following the WUNforALL that they felt more confident following on from the session.

Given the successes of the two events to support both employers and employees, we’re pleased to confirm that there is more to come from #SpeakUp as we take the campaign into 2025. Here’s what you can expect to see:

• An Event Policy
• Behaviours and Pledge
• Future Skills Sessions
• Blogs around topic of speaking up and resources
• Podcasts with Senior Leaders discussing best practice

We’d like to express our gratitude to those that have shared their stories and experiences with us to date here at WUN.

We would also like to thank E.ON, M Group Services, Pinsent Masons and for our partners that enable us to continue creating these opportunities for collaboration and insights.

If you’d like to be part of or would like to support the #SpeakUp campaign as we head into 2025, then please do contact [email protected] to find out how you too can be involved.

For further information on changes to the law from the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act please refer to official guidance and information:

New protections from sexual harassment come into force – GOV.UK

EHRC publishes updated workplace sexual harassment guidance ahead of change to law | EHRC