Sexual Harassment Training

Governor Brown recently signed SB 1343 which requires employers with five or more employees to provide training to all employees (both supervisory and non-supervisory) by January 1, 2020.

Napa Chamber of Commerce has partnered with The Personnel Perspective to offer Sexual Harassment Trainings throughout 2019. Supervisors must complete a 2 hour training while non-supervisor staff must complete a 1 hour training. Make sure to register for the correct one based on qualification.

Previous law requires employers with at least 50 employees to provide supervisors with two hours of sexual harassment prevention training within six months of hire and every two years thereafter. Now, the threshold number of employees that triggers coverage under the law has been lowered to five, and non-supervisory employees are included in the training mandate.

Key Points

• Employers with at least five employees must provide: (1) Two hours of sexual harassment prevention training to all supervisory employees; (2) One hour of sexual harassment prevention training to all non-supervisory employees.
• Part-time and temporary employees, plus independent contractors count toward the minimum employee count of five employees.
• Must be done by January 1, 2020.
• Training must occur within six months of the employee starting the position (and every two years thereafter).
• Sexual harassment prevention training may be conducted individually or as a group.
• Sexual harassment prevention training may be in conjunction with other training and may be given in shorter time segments, as long as the two-hour requirement for supervisory employees and the one-hour requirement for non-supervisory employees is met.
• The Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) will develop and make available training courses for supervisors and non-supervisors. As before, employers may develop their own training platforms or use those of experienced training providers, such as the California Employers Association.

There is also a new requirement for temporary or seasonal employees. Beginning January 1, 2020, for seasonal and temporary employees, or any employee that is hired to work for less than six months, an employer shall provide training within 30 calendar days after the hire date or within 100 hours worked, whichever occurs first. In the case of a temporary employee employed by a temporary services employer (as defined by the Labor Code), to perform services for clients, the training must be provided by the temporary services employer, not the client.