By Sylvia Luneau

I know it seems crazy that “normal” still exists in any capacity  but the 2021 deadline for Sexual Harassment Training still looms on the horizon. Don’t forget to set your company up for future success.

If you have five or more employees in your company, everyone (employees and managers alike) needs to go through Sexual Harassment Training before January 1, 2021. There are many excellent free and reasonably priced courses online for employees and managers.  

Choosing the right resource for your company’s sexual harassment training will depend on number of employees and on your budget. This training can easily be completed online during the shelter in place ordinance.

Things to consider:

• Many business insurance companies offer free, online sexual harassment training for their clients. Reach out to your insurance provider to find out if they have a resource for you.
• Online trainings vary in quality. If you are a manager, make time to test the training before assigning it to your employees. You want to ensure that you approve of the messaging and the examples that are presented.
• Some government sites have free training available, however, it can be rather dry. Why is that a problem? You want your employees to be engaged with the message and you want the message to be memorable. Otherwise, what’s the point?
• Regardless of the online training, consider hosting a separate Zoom meeting to talk about this very important topic. It will show your employees that you take this issue seriously and want them to feel safe and heard. Plus, in future, should anything related to harassment happen in your workplace, having had a meeting (Zoom is okay) will show that you take this topic seriously.
• If you are a business owner, schedule an insurance review about sexual harassment and your coverage. Make sure it is adequate for your environment.
• If you are a manager, double check that the people you supervise are up to date on their training and clear on what is expected of them.  

Many attorneys speculate that there will be a spike in claims once people know what is considered harassment. Others say that the government-sponsored harassment training websites may give employees too much insight into how to sue their employers. We feel strongly that the more informed people are, the safer and healthier a work place will be. Regardless, as California employers, we need to train our employees properly and protect them and our businesses from developing cultures of harassment and discomfort.  

Although there are many companies in the sexual harassment training space, we found that EasyLlama* has upfront pricing, up-to-date videos, and excellent tracking of employee progress. We encourage you to examine many resources before making your decision.  

* We did not receive any commission or payment in exchange for referring EasyLlama in this article.