McGeorge Adjunct Professor Chris Micheli

Senate Bill 1343 was signed into law on September 30 as Chapter 956. It reduces the threshold requiring employers to provide employees with sexual harassment training from employers with 50 or more employees to employers with just 5 or more employees – including non-supervisorial, temporary, and seasonal employees.

The bill also requires the Department of Fair Employment and Housing to develop an online training course and make it available on the DFEH website. Existing law – the California Fair Employment and Housing Act – requires employers with 50 or more employees to provide at least 2 hours of proscribed training and education regarding sexual harassment, abusive conduct, and harassment based upon gender to all their supervisory employees within six months of their assuming that supervisory position and then once every two years thereafter.

SB 1343 instead requires an employer who employs five or more employees to provide at least two hours of sexual harassment training to all supervisory employees and then at least one hour of sexual harassment training to all non-supervisory employees by January 1, 2020 and once every two years thereafter.

The bill also requires DFEH to develop or obtain one-hour and two-hour online training courses on the prevention of sexual harassment in the workplace and to post these courses on the DFEH website.

DFEH is also required to make existing informational posters and fact sheets, as well as these online training courses, available to employers and to members of the public in specified alternative languages on the DFEH website. The languages include: English, Spanish, simplified Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Korean, and any other language that is spoken by a substantial number of non-English speaking individuals.

This required training can be provided with other training of employees. Employees can complete their training individually or as part of a group presentation. They can also complete the training in shorter segments as long as the total hourly requirement is reached. SB 1343 allows an employer to develop its own training module or direct employees to review the online training course that’s required by DFEH.

You can find a full transcript of today’s episode here.