California Online Sexual Harassment Training & Prevention

Employers with five or more employees or other persons providing contracted services must provide sexual harassment prevention training to California employees.

Employees or contractors who work outside California count when determining if an employer must provide sexual harassment prevention training.  For example, if the employer has two California employees but has a total of five workers, the employer must provide sexual harassment training to the two employees who work in California.

Covered employers must provide sexual harassment training to new employees within six (6) months of hire and must train new supervisors within six (6) months of assuming a supervisory position.

A supervisor is anyone with authority to hire, fire, assign, transfer, discipline, or reward other employees. A supervisor is also someone with the authority to effectively recommend these actions if exercising that authority requires the use of independent judgment.

All employees and supervisors in California must be trained. The law does not require employers to train independent contractors, volunteers, or unpaid interns. Nevertheless, prudent employers provide training to these persons to ensure a harassment-free workplace for everyone.

Employers are not required to train employees who do not work in the State of California. Note, however, that other states in which employees work may have similar sexual harassment training requirements.

Moreover, prudent employers will recognize that providing training to independent contractors and out-of-state employees who regularly interact with California employees is an essential component of protecting itself from harassment liability in California.  As expressly stated in the law, the requirements establish a “minimum threshold” and “should not…relieve any employer” from providing any additional training necessary “to meet its obligations to take all reasonable steps necessary to prevent and correct harassment and discrimination.”  (Cal. Gov. Code § 12950.1(e).)

Yes.  Employers must provide training to any employee who works less than six (6) months, including temporary and seasonal employees.

The training must be provided either within thirty calendar days from the first-day worked; or within the first 100 hours worked, whichever occurs first.

However, an employer who is a client of a temporary staffing agency need not train individuals at the worksite who are provided by the agency. Instead, the temporary staffing agency is required to train those individuals.

Yes.  The training may be completed individually online so long as it meets the effective e-learning and duration requirements.

Also, the training need not be completed all at once.  It may be completed in shorter segments, provided the length requirement is met. E-learning training may use bookmarking features, which allows the employee to pause the training, so long as the actual e-learning content meets or exceeds the time requirements.

California employers must ensure the training includes information and practical guidance on the following:

• The definition of sexual harassment under Title VII and FEHA
• Federal and state statutes and case law prohibiting and preventing sexual harassment
• Types of conduct that constitute sexual harassment with practical examples
• The definition of “abusive conduct” under state law
• Prevention strategies for harassment and abusive conduct
• Information about preventing abusive conduct and harassment based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression
• Supervisor’s duty to report harassment
• What to do if a supervisor is personally accused of harassment
• An explanation of limited confidentiality of the complaint and investigation process
• Questions that assess learning, skill-building activities to assess understanding and application of content, and hypothetical scenarios about harassment with discussion questions
• Remedies and resources (to whom to report harassment) available for sexual harassment victims
• How employers must correct harassing behavior

The training must also include the employer’s anti-harassment policy and employees must read and acknowledge receipt of the policy.

No.  However, California law encourages employers to include bystander intervention training as part of harassment training. Specifically, employers are encouraged to provide all employees with bystander intervention training providing practical guidance on how to enable bystanders to recognize and take action when they observe problematic behaviors. The purpose of the training is to provide employees who may see sexual harassment occurring in the workplace with the sills and confidence to intervene, and the resources for support if they are unable to intervene.

Traliant’s online training Positive Workplace covers prevention of sexual harassment and all forms of harassment, discrimination, and retaliation, as well as bystander intervention, workplace civility, and bullying prevention.

California regulations state that the learning objectives of the training must be designed to:

• Assist employers in correcting workplace behaviors that create or contribute to harassment based on sex, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.
• Provide employees with information about the negative effects of abusive conduct.
• Develop, foster, and encourage values in employees that will help them prevent, effectively respond, and develop methods to promptly address and correct harassing, or other wrongful workplace behavior in the workplace.

It depends.  If an employee or supervisor took compliant training at another employer within the past two years, they need not retake the training.  Note that the employer still must provide a copy of its anti-harassment policy to all new employees within six (6) months of hire.  However, each employer is responsible for ensuring that all employees including supervisors, receive training that complies with California training requirements.  Most employers find it easier to have employees and supervisors retake the training provided by their organization to ensure compliance and avoid potential liability for relying on training provided elsewhere.

Employees must receive sexual harassment training once every two years.  Employers may use a two-year “training year” cycle to determine when to retrain employees. For example, if an employer trains employees sometime in 2020, the employer must provide retraining no later than December 31, 2022.  Employers who adopt this tracking method need to ensure that new employees and supervisors who receive training within six months of hire/promotion are included in the next training year, even if that is less than two years after their initial training.  An employer may not extend the training year for the new employees and new supervisors beyond the two-year training year.

Employers may also use individual tracking to determine retraining requirements.  In this case, the employer must ensure that each employee receives retraining within two years from the date they last completed training.

Employers must keep documentation relating to employee training, including, but not limited, to:

• names of employees trained
• date of training
• a sign-in sheet
• a copy of all certificates of attendance or completion issued
• the type of training
• a copy of all materials (written or recorded) that comprise the training
• name of the training provider

The employer must maintain this documentation for at least two years. 

Yes, employees must be paid for the training time. California law states that the employer “shall provide…” sexual harassment and abusive conduct training. Thus, it is the employer’s responsibility to provide training – and not employees – and therefore the employer must pay for any costs incurred in implementing training. In fact, the DFEH is authorized to seek a court order to compel an employer to provide the training. The statutory language also makes clear that employees may not be required to take the training during personal time. Instead, the training must be provided as part of their employment.

While many providers offer training on preventing workplace harassment, few have the legal and instructional design expertise required to comply with harassment training laws, such as those in California.

Traliant’s more than 1,000 clients sleep well knowing that we regularly monitor laws around the country to ensure our training stays up-to-date and compliant. Indeed, we have updated our harassment course on numerous occasions in the last few years to comply with new state and local training laws. Importantly, Traliant does not charge its clients to update course content due to changes in the law.