Sexual Harassment Training Required for CA Startups

by Denise Iavarone, Startup HR Generalist, Keating Consulting Group

California’s SB 1343, which became effective January 1, 2019, significantly expanded the requirement to provide harassment prevention training to supervisors and employees.  Under the new law, California employers with 5 or more employees (no matter where they are located--and includes part-time, seasonal or temporary employees, and independent contractors in the count) must provide two hours of training to all supervisors within six months of their hire or promotion.  The new law also requires that employees receive one hour of harassment prevention training.

This training must be completed in 2019, even if the employee received training as recently as 2018.  Training must be repeated every two years.

Who is a Supervisor?

A supervisor is anyone with the authority to hire, fire, assign, transfer, discipline, or reward other employees.  A supervisor is also anyone with the authority to effectively recommend (but not necessarily take) these actions if exercising that authority requires the use of independent judgment.

What Training is Required?

Employers must provide classroom or other effective interactive training or use an interactive online training program which will be created by the DFEH in late 2019.

The training must cover abusive conduct, harassment prevention, discrimination, and retaliation, and it must include instruction on harassment tied to gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.

If a webinar-type training is provided, the employer must document and demonstrate that each supervisor who was not physically present in the same room as the trainer attended the entire training and actively participated with the content, discussion questions, quizzes, and other activities.  The webinar must provide supervisors the opportunity to ask questions and otherwise seek and receive guidance and assistance.  If an e-learning training program is used, the employee must be allowed to submit questions to a qualified trainer and receive a response within 48 hours.

Who can Provide the Required Training?

Qualified trainers can be attorneys, professors or instructors, HR professionals or harassment prevention consultants.  HR professionals must have a minimum of two years of practical experience in one or more of the following:

  • Designing or conducting discrimination, retaliation and sexual harassment prevention training
  • Responding to sexual harassment complaints or other discrimination complaints
  • Conducting investigations of sexual harassment complaints
  • Advising employers or employees regarding discrimination, retaliation and sexual harassment prevention

What Records are Required?

The requirements for retaining training records fall under both AB 1825 and SB 1343.  Employers must keep the following records for at least two years:

  • Date of training
  • Names of attendees
  • Names of trainers or training providers
  • Types of training conducted
  • Sign-in sheet
  • Copies of all written training materials
  • Copies of all recorded training materials
  • Copies of all written questions received and all written responses or guidance provided during any webinar or e-learning
  • Copies of any certificates provided