All California businesses must be in compliance with California’s Sexual Harassment Prevention Training by January 1, 2021. Employers should review their sexual harassment training obligations to ensure compliance. SB 1343 requires that all employers of 5 or more employees provide 1 hour of sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training to non-managerial employees and 2 hours of sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training to managerial employees once every two years.

Employers with five or more employees must provide sexual harassment prevention training to all employees, even nonsupervisory employees, by January 1, 2021. The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing provides a free online sexual harassment and abusive conduct in the workplace training that satisfies California’s legal training requirement pursuant to Government Code section 12950.1. Click here- https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/shpt/.

Employers of 50 or more employees have an existing and ongoing obligation to train new supervisory employees within six months of assuming their supervisory positions. Beginning January 1, 2021, new supervisory employees in workplaces of 5 or more employees must be trained within six months of assuming their supervisory positions, and new nonsupervisory employees must be trained within six months of hire. Employees must be retrained once every two years.

It is not required that employers train independent contractors, volunteers, and unpaid interns. However, in determining whether an employer meets the threshold of having 5 employees and being subject to the harassment prevention training requirement, independent contractors, volunteers, and unpaid interns must be counted. For example, if an employer has 2 full time employees and 6 unpaid interns, the employer would meet the training threshold requirement and would need to ensure the two full time employees receive training only.

The law requires employers to keep documentation of the training they have provided to their employees for a minimum of two years, including but not limited to the names of the employees trained, the date of training, the sign-in sheet for such training (if any), a copy of all certificates of attendance or completion issued, the type of training, a copy of all written or recorded materials that comprise the training, and the name of the training provider. Examples of tracking individual compliance include a certificate and/or a sign-in sheet that includes a verification that trainees completed the training. Documentation of the training should not be sent to DFEH but should be kept on the employer’s premises.

In addition, every employer must post a poster developed by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing regarding Transgender Rights and Sexual Harassment in a prominent and accessible location in the workplace. The required posters can be found here https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/Posters/?openTab=1