Has Your Company Completed Their Required Sexual Harassment Training?
Required Sexual Harassment Training? Haven’t we already been doing that for decades? In 2018, in response to the #MeToo movement, California lawmakers passed legislation with an intention to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. This included a sexual harassment training to all employees and temporary employees and the original date for the required training to be completed by was January 1, 2020. That date was changed to one year later to January 1, 2021 to give employers more time to complete the requirements. It’s an extension from the past sexual harassment trainings that have been provided by companies.
When the date was initially pushed back, Covid-19 was just being cultivated. The ever changing business world of 2020 with employees now working from home, companies laying employees off, and companies not sure if they’ll survive or thrive in the new climate… well, I wouldn’t be surprised if the sexual harassment training has completely slipped everyone’s minds.
One thing I’ve learned from my time in HR is that it takes a long time to move things forward in bureaucracies where there are multiple budget and quality approvers, and when research is also needed. When you need to involve every single employee for legal reasons, extra time is needed to pad the schedule. It’s now June (when this is published) and that leaves a little over six month to pull this off.
So, what about another extension Gov Gavin Newson? It’s possible and I’m not sure if this is something he or legislation is considering. What I do think is that women and the #MeToo movement may think he’s not taking the sexual harassment training seriously if he extends the deadline again. Most of us are forgiving of a lot of changes because of Covid-19, but an extension of 2 years on something that was signed in 2018 in response to #MeToo would be too long.
The specific laws are SB 1343 and SB 778. Here are the requirements:
Employer with 5 or more employees to provide sexual harassment training and education by January 1, 2021 (not January 1, 2020), and thereafter once every 2 years.
New nonsupervisory employees are provided sexual harassment training within 6 months of hire.
New supervisory employees are provided sexual harassment training within 6 months of the assumption of a supervisory position (such as a promotion or a new hire).
Any employer who has already provided this training and education in 2019 is not required to provide it again until 2 years thereafter.
Training may be completed by employees individually or as part of a group presentation, and may be completed in shorter segments, as long as the applicable hourly total requirement is met.
The training and education must include information and practical guidance regarding the federal and state statutory provisions concerning the prohibition against and the prevention and correction of sexual harassment and the remedies available to victims of sexual harassment in employment.
The training and education must include practical examples aimed at instructing supervisors in the prevention of harassment, discrimination, and retaliation, and must be presented by trainers or educators with knowledge and expertise in the prevention of harassment, discrimination, and retaliation.
The Department of Fair Employment and Housing must provide a method for employees who have completed the training to save electronically and print a certificate of completion.
To comply, the subject matter of the training must not just be limited to sexual harassment. Training provided must be inclusive of harassment based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.
These laws set a minimum threshold for training. Employers can choose to provide longer, more frequent or elaborate training and education.
Ok, so now that we know that six-months really isn’t much time to complete anything, let alone a whole new sexual harassment training program (and you see how hefty the requirements are) let’s get to work on planning how to get this sexual harassment training completed for your organization. It can be quite easy and there are online options.
My recommendation is to go with a service that offers online courses. Yes, they may be drier options. Online sexual harassment trainings aren’t usually the option I would go with in a different climate, but I think it’s really important that we make attempts to complete this training at our companies so we don’t get another legislative extension. I recommend doing it online this time, and if the world is in a better place in a couple years, hire a consultant or have your experienced HR leader conduct the training.
Here are the couple options I recommend. First, I have to say that I’m a huge CalChamber fan. I’ve purchased their digital posters and attended a Parental Leave Training in person in Oakland, CA in 2019. You can sign up to receive the posters auto-shipped when there are legal changes. Calchamber’s posters combine city, state, and federal within California and the Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area so they’re not such an eye-sore in the office. Calchamber also does posters for Los Angeles, Malibu and Southern California. I’ve just only used them for Northern California.
For online training Calchamber offers the employee online sexual harassment training for $25.99, and $43.99 for managers.
If you’re looking for a cheaper option and your company is over 151 employees OR you’re in another state like New York, Delaware, Vermont, Connecticut, Maine or Illinois, I’ve also found HRdirect has good options. HRdirect offers an all-state inclusive sexual harassment training program and there’s a tier break-down on price as follows:
1+ Employees = $40 each employee
11+ Employees = $30 each employee
51+ Employees = $26 each employee
151+ Employees = $20 each employee
Here’s the catch with HRdirect vs Calchamber… Because it’s all inclusive and includes the manager sexual harassment training and the employee sexual harassment training, your non-managers will be doing a two hour training instead of one hour.
If you have employees in California and in other states, I recommend using Calchamber for the sexual harassment training for California employees and using HRdirect for the other employees in other states. Yes, you can combine services!
Lastly, now that we’re all working remotely, there’s going to be a legal requirement to make those HR posters accessible digitally on a wiki or some internal company website. HRdirect offers digital posters.
Covid-19 has changed the way we do business and we need to shift our business requirements. Let’s knock out that sexual harassment training online folks, and prevent the need for another extension. Show us women that you care.
Forward this article onto your HR representative or whomever is responsible for making sure this training gets done!
