In this case, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) concluded that calling an employee “bald” amounted to sex-related workplace harassment. This type of harassment occurs when an individual is subjected to “unwanted conduct” related (i.e. linked) to their sex which violates their dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.
The Claimant worked in a predominantly male manufacturing environment where inappropriate language was common. A workplace altercation between the Claimant and a colleague led to the Claimant being called a derogatory term referencing his baldness and threatened with physical violence. The incident led to the Claimant's dismissal, and he subsequently brought claims of unfair dismissal and sex-related harassment in relation to the comment about his baldness.
The Employment Tribunal (“ET”) upheld the Claimant's harassment claim, stating that the colleague had crossed a line by making personal remarks about the Claimant's appearance and decided that the comments about his baldness amounted to sex-related harassment. In the ET’s view, baldness is predominantly a male issue since more men than women suffer from hair loss and there was therefore a sufficient connection between the word “bald” and the protected characteristic of sex. As such the comment was therefore related to the Claimant's sex and created a hostile or offensive environment.
The Respondent appealed this decision. It argued that for harassment to be related to sex, it must exclusively apply to one sex. Since both men and women can experience baldness, the Respondent argued that the ET's ruling on sex-related harassment was untenable.
The EAT dismissed the appeal. It decided that there was no legal basis for the argument that unwanted conduct must relate to a matter exclusive to one gender for it to be considered related to sex. In the EAT’s view, the comment about baldness did amount to sex-related harassment due to the higher prevalence of baldness in men, meaning such comments were more likely to be directed towards men.
This case confirms that sex-related harassment can involve matters or features that are not exclusively linked to or associated with one gender. It is sufficient if the matter or feature is predominantly associated with one gender. It also highlights that it is important for employers to recognise and address all forms of inappropriate comments or behaviour in the workplace and be alert to remarks about appearances which may create a hostile and intimidating work environment.