California Employers Must Provide Sexual Harassment Training to Employees By January 1, 2021

Updates

December 03, 2020

California Employers Must Provide Sexual Harassment Training to Employees By January 1, 2021

Prior to January 1, 2021, all employers with five or more employees in California must provide one hour of sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training to nonsupervisory employees and two hours of sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training to any supervisors and managers once every two years.

See Gov't Code section 12950.1. Employers must provide sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training at least every two years.

As one option for the training, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) provides a free online training (provided here) for nonsupervisory and supervisory employees in English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Tagalog that fulfills the legally mandated training requirement. There are options for closed captioning as well as alt text for images and icons. Following the training, employees have the option to print a certificate of completion. Employers are required to maintain the certificates on file for at least two years.

Employers must also provide employees with either the DFEH poster or fact sheet (also available in several languages) or equivalent information. The English language versions of the poster and fact sheet are linked here.

Employers should contact experienced employment counsel for guidance complying with California's training requirements.