Policy Statement
Vetro Recruitment is committed to a working environment in which everyone is treated with dignity and respect and is protected from sexual harassment, harassment, and victimisation. Sexual harassment is unacceptable whether it is carried out by a Vetro Recruitment employee, temporary worker, agency worker, client employee, manager, customer, contractor, visitor, or other third party.
Vetro Recruitment will take all steps that are reasonable in the circumstances to prevent sexual harassment and will take proportionate preventative action where risks are identified. This policy supports Vetro Recruitment’s duties under the Equality Act 2010, the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023, and, from 30 October 2026, the strengthened provisions introduced by the Employment Rights Act 2025.
2. What is Sexual Harassment?
Sexual harassment is unwanted conduct of a sexual nature which has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment for them. A person of any sex or gender may experience sexual harassment. Conduct can be verbal, non-verbal, physical, or digital and may be a single incident or a pattern of behaviour.
Examples include, but are not limited to:
● Sexual comments, jokes, remarks, or intrusive personal questions.
● Unwanted sexual advances or requests for sexual favours.
● Unwanted touching, hugging, kissing, massaging, standing unnecessarily close, or other physical conduct.
● Displaying, sending, or sharing sexual images, messages, videos, or social-media content.
● Sexual gestures, staring, or suggestive behaviour.
● Threats, pressure, or offers connected with sexual conduct, work, shifts, promotion, or other benefits.
● Conduct by a client, customer, member of the public, or other third party encountered through work.
3. Prevention
Vetro Recruitment will use a risk-based and proportionate approach. Preventative measures may include:
● Maintaining and communicating this policy and clear reporting routes.
● Assessing the risk of sexual harassment, including risks arising from particular sectors, clients, assignments, locations, lone working, night work, alcohol, public/customer contact, and power imbalances.
● Seeking appropriate information from hirers about their arrangements for preventing and responding to harassment.
● Providing temporary and agency workers with prevention and reporting information before or at the start of assignments.
● Training Vetro Recruitment employees who recruit, manage, or support workers and refreshing that training periodically.
● Taking additional controls where a client or assignment presents increased risk.
● Monitoring complaints, concerns, patterns, and lessons learned, and reviewing controls accordingly.
4. Reporting Concerns
Anyone who experiences, witnesses, or becomes aware of sexual harassment or inappropriate sexual conduct connected with a Vetro Recruitment assignment should report it as soon as possible. You do not need to decide whether the conduct meets the legal definition before reporting it.
Concerns should be raised with:
● Primary contact: Alastair Tulloch – Managing Director
Email: alastair@vetrorecruitment.co.uk
● Alternative contact: Alun Davies – Director
Email: alun@vetrorecruitment.co.uk
If immediate safety is at risk, move to a safe place and seek emergency assistance where necessary. Vetro Recruitment will support temporary workers who reasonably feel unsafe and will consider removal from or reassignment away from the situation while concerns are assessed.
5. How Vetro Recruitment Will Respond
Reports will be taken seriously, recorded appropriately, and handled as confidentially as reasonably possible. Vetro Recruitment will consider immediate safeguarding, preserve relevant evidence, identify witnesses, liaise with the hirer where appropriate, and conduct or coordinate a fair investigation. The precise process will depend on who is alleged to have carried out the conduct and the employment relationships involved. No person will be subjected to victimisation or detrimental treatment because they raise a concern in good faith, support another person’s complaint, or participate in an investigation. Deliberately false or malicious allegations may be dealt with separately, but a complaint that is not upheld will not of itself be treated as malicious.
6. Standards and Consequences
All Vetro Recruitment employees and temporary workers are expected to treat others with dignity and respect. Proven misconduct may result in disciplinary action, termination of an assignment, removal from Vetro Recruitment’s candidate registry, or other appropriate action. Where the alleged perpetrator is employed or engaged by a client or other third party, Vetro Recruitment will raise the matter with the relevant organisation and consider what further protective steps are required.
7. Hirers and Third Parties
Vetro Recruitment will take reasonable and proportionate steps to satisfy itself that hirers provide an appropriate working environment for temporary agency workers, including obtaining information about arrangements for preventing and responding to harassment. Where concerns or increased risks are identified, Vetro Recruitment will consider additional preventative measures before or during an assignment. Vetro Recruitment will not knowingly carry out an instruction that it considers discriminatory, harassing, or victimising.
8. Breaches and Consequences
Any conduct that falls below the standards outlined in this statement may be addressed through appropriate and proportionate action. Depending on the nature and seriousness of the circumstances, and subject to applicable law and contractual terms, this may include:
● Requiring the behaviour to stop immediately.
● Requesting corrective action or additional training.
● Restricting or withdrawing an individual's access to our premises, client sites, or
placement environments.
● Requesting the removal or replacement of personnel, where contractually permitted.
● Suspending work or reviewing the relevant business relationship.
● Terminating a contractual arrangement where permitted by its terms.
● Referring the matter to the appropriate authorities where warranted.
9. Monitoring and Review
Vetro Recruitment will maintain appropriate records of training, risk assessments, hirer due diligence, reported concerns, and actions taken. This policy will be reviewed at least annually and sooner following a serious incident, material legal change, or evidence that existing controls are ineffective.
Issued on behalf of Vetro Recruitment
Name: Alastair Tulloch
Job title: Managing Director
Email: alastair@vrecruitment.co.uk
