Why Employees Don’t Report Sexual Harassment at Work, and What Employers Can Do About It

When employers think about sexual harassment in the workplace, most aren’t dismissive. And yet, in workplace after workplace, incidents go unreported, sometimes for months, sometimes for years, sometimes forever.

Understanding why that happens is essential, because if your team isn’t reporting, you don’t have a picture of what’s actually happening in your organisation; and under the law as it stands today, let alone from October 2026, that matters more than ever.

This blog considers sexual harassment at work from your employees’ perspective: why they stay silent, what gets in the way of reporting harassment in the workplace, and what you can do about it before October 2026 changes what’s expected of you.

“We Don’t Have Issues Like That Here” — Are You Sure?

It’s a logical response. If no one has raised a complaint, it’s easy to conclude that it must be because there’s nothing to raise. But the truth is, an absence of complaints is not the same as an absence of problems.

According to a Unite survey from 2025, 75% of people who experienced sexual harassment at work did not report it. That’s three in every four people who experienced something serious enough to be considered harassment.

Think about what that means in practice. If your team has never raised a concern, that could mean your workplace genuinely is a safe and respectful environment. It could also mean that people have experienced something but felt they had no viable path forward.

The same research found that 52% of women have experienced sexual harassment at work. And separately, a WorkNest survey reported in People Management in 2025 found that 41% of employers had not carried out a sexual harassment risk assessment, meaning that many organisations are operating on assumptions.

Why Don’t Employees Report Sexual Harassment?

The 75% of people who experience harassment and don’t report it have real, understandable reasons for that, and all of them are important for employers to understand.

They don’t believe it will be taken seriously.

Research by HR Acuity found that 39% of employees who had experienced mistreatment at work chose not to report it because they didn’t feel confident it would be handled fairly.

In many cases, it reflects a lived experience of watching a colleague’s complaint be dismissed or minimised, or watching a perpetrator get away without any consequences. When people don’t trust the process, they don’t use it.

They’re worried about retaliation.

Fear of retaliation, whether from the person who harassed them, from colleagues who take sides, or from the organisation itself, is one of the most significant barriers to reporting. If speaking up might cost you your job or your professional reputation, then many people will decide that the personal cost is too high.

They don’t know how or who to tell.

Some employees simply don’t know what to do with what has happened to them. They may not be certain whether what they experienced constitutes harassment. They may not know who the right person to speak to is or whether there’s a formal process to follow. When reporting mechanisms are unclear or hard to access, silence becomes the path of least resistance.

They blame themselves.

Some people who experience sexual harassment question themselves: did I misread the situation? Was it really that serious? That self-questioning can be enough to stop a report being made, particularly in workplaces where the culture doesn’t make it clear that the organisation is firmly on the side of the person raising the concern.

They think nothing will change anyway.

In some organisations, there’s a broader cultural sense that certain behaviours are tolerated or that certain people are untouchable. When employees believe that reporting won’t lead to meaningful action, they stop reporting. The organisation reads that silence as a clean bill of health, and the cycle continues.

How Is the Law Around Sexual Harassment Changing?

Since October 2024, all UK employers have been legally required to take proactive steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. Employers have had to actively assess the risk of harassment occurring and take steps to prevent it before anything happens.

From October 2026, that standard rises further. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, the duty moves from “reasonable steps” to “all reasonable steps”, meaning that employers must do everything possible to prevent sexual harassment. At the same time, employers will become directly liable for harassment of their employees by third parties: customers, clients, contractors, and anyone else their staff encounters through work.

Where a tribunal finds that an employer has breached the preventative duty, compensation awarded to a successful claimant can be uplifted by up to 25%.

You can read more about the October 2026 changes and what they mean in practice on the Acas website.

Employers are expected to understand their workplace culture, take preventive action, and then be able to evidence what they’ve done. That requires knowing what’s actually happening in your organisation, which brings us back to the reporting problem.

How You Can Empower Your Team to Report Sexual Harassment at Work

Preventing sexual harassment at work starts with understanding why people don’t come forward. When employees stay silent, it’s often a response to a culture and a set of systems. However, cultures and systems can be changed. Here’s where to focus.

Build trust before anything happens.

The most important work happens long before any incident occurs. If your team trusts that your organisation will not tolerate sexual harassment and that concerns will be taken seriously and dealt with promptly, they’re far more likely to come forward if an incident occurs.

That trust is built through consistent, visible leadership behaviour: through the way everyday conversations are handled, through how managers respond when concerns are raised informally, and through the sense your people have that the organisation has their backs.

Make it easy to report, and make sure people know how.

Not every employee will feel comfortable speaking to their line manager, particularly if the harasser is their line manager or a close colleague of their line manager. Anonymous reporting options, designated contacts outside the direct management chain, and clearly communicated processes all reduce the barrier to coming forward.

It is also beneficial to encourage employees to report situations where they felt at risk or uncomfortable, even if they don’t think anything really happened. This not only offers a better idea of where risk factors for sexual harassment may lie, but it builds trust and encourages employees who aren’t sure what constitutes sexual harassment to report uncomfortable situations if they happen.

Be explicit that speaking up is safe.

Don’t assume your team knows that the organisation will support them if they raise a concern. Say it. Put it in your communications and policies, and make it unambiguous that there will be no retaliation. Then, back that up by responding visibly and fairly when concerns are raised.

Train your managers specifically.

Managers are often the first point of contact when an incident takes place, so how they respond is incredibly important. A dismissive or poorly handled initial conversation can shut down a report before it ever reaches HR or a formal process.

Managers need specific training on how to receive disclosures with care and how to document what they’ve been told. Our People Management Training can help build that confidence and consistency across your management team.

Review and strengthen your policies.

Your policies should specifically name sexual harassment, and they should cover third-party situations and online behaviour as well as in-person conduct. If they haven’t been reviewed recently, they need to be. Our HR Policies and Procedures support can help you make sure they’re fit for purpose before October.

Ask your people directly.

This is perhaps the most underused tool available to employers. Regular, confidential conversations (through surveys, focus groups, or one-to-ones) that genuinely invite people to share their experience of the workplace can surface issues that would never make it through a formal reporting channel. It takes courage to ask, because you might hear something you weren’t expecting. But the alternative is not knowing.

Your Questions Answered

What if someone reports something informally — do we have to act on it?

Yes. Once a concern has been raised with someone in the organisation (even informally), the employer has a responsibility to take it seriously. What that looks like will depend on the nature of the concern, but doing nothing is not an option.

What if the harasser is a customer or client?

From October 2026, employers will be directly liable if they permit third-party harassment of their staff. In practice, this means thinking in advance about the risks your team faces in customer-facing or client-facing roles and having clear processes for what happens if a member of staff raises a concern about a third party’s behaviour.

How do we know if our culture is actually safe?

Honestly, the only way to know is to actively take steps to understand it. Anonymous surveys, confidential focus groups, and independent diagnostics can all help you understand what your people are actually experiencing.

The Law Sets the Floor. Your Culture Sets the Standard.

The October 2026 changes raise the legal bar for every employer in the country.

If you’re not certain where your organisation stands, Petaurum’s Sexual Harassment Culture Scan can help. It’s a confidential, independent diagnostic that tells you what your people actually experience, benchmarked against the EHRC’s eight-step framework and delivered with a prioritised action plan and a direct readout to your leadership team.

Built for SMEs, delivered in four to eight weeks, and led by practitioners with the kind of experience that makes it credible to everyone involved.

Find out more about the Culture Scan and take the first real step toward a workplace where everyone feels safe.