In the wake of the #MeToo movement, it’s likely that employers across North America will soon be required by law to provide workplace sexual harassment training to employees. While this training will make workplaces safer and more inclusive, employers are faced with the challenging and potentially expensive task of developing and delivering training programs.
As of January 2020, the State of New York, a regulatory leader in the United States is poised make training around sexual harassment mandatory for employers by 2021. New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine and other states will also soon require employers to provide this training.
If your state passed a law like California’s, would you be prepared?
However, leading the way in this trend is California. The state, famously always “five years in the future“, rolled out mandatory workplace sexual harassment training on January 1, 2020. All employers of five or more employees must now provide at least two hours of sexual harassment training to all supervisory employees, as well as at least one hour of sexual harassment training to all nonsupervisory employees
If your state passed a law with requirements similar to California’s, would you be prepared?
How California Employers Must Provide Anti-Harassment Training
California’s new Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) is intended to protect employees from discrimination, harassment and retaliation at work. The anti-harassment provisions in the law apply to all employers with one or more employees.
In California, sexual harassment prevention training must cover a broad and comprehensive variety of topics, including:
| What sexual harassment is, based on the law | Supervisors’ obligation to report harassment |
| What the law says about the prohibition of harassment | The limited confidentiality of the complaint process |
| Examples of harassing conduct, including harassment based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation | Best practices for employers to correct harassing behaviors |
| What victims can do if they’re harassed, including filing a complaint at the state or federal level | What to do if a supervisor is personally accused of harassment |
| Resources for victims of harassment, including how to report it | Elements of an effective anti-harassment policy and how to use it |
| Strategies to prevent harassment | Definition and examples of “abusive conduct” as defined by law |
Employers who do not adequately cover these topics are not only failing to deliver meaningful training to employees but will also leave themselves exposed to legal risk.
Given pending legislation in a host of other states and jurisdictions, the same will be true for employers all across North America.
The Challenge of Delivering Interactive Sexual Harassment Training
California’s new FEHA law also sets detailed guidelines about how employers must deliver harassment training. For example, the training must be delivered online and be interactive, must be at least one hour in length. On top of that, under FEHA stipulates, supervisors in California must complete an additional hour of training, and all employees be re-trained every two years.
Due to the complexity of the guidelines, the risk of failing to comply with the law and the desire to provide employees with meaningful training to keep workplaces safer, employers are turning to online training.
As well, pre-designed curriculum makes it quick and easy to efficiently train employees. Learning management systems also make it easy to track compliance, so employers can prove to regulators that they have trained their employees.
Quick, Fast and Meaningful Online Workplace Harassment Training
By being proactive and offering harassment training, as an employer you will not only help protect your staff and your business from harassment, you will also be prepared when regulations similar to FEHA are passed in your state.
Udutu’s white-label workplace harassment curriculum complies with California FEHA guidelines and other legislation for online training
Combined with Udutu’s online learning management system, Udutu’s white-label workplace harassment curriculum offers employers a quick, fast and meaningful training solution that complies with FEHA and other legislation.
Special Offer
Subscribe to Udutu LMS before March 31, 2020 and have this Udutu’s online sexual harassment training course added to your LMS account for free. Contact us to receive this offer.
