California Harassment Training Deadline Extended
9.10.19
California law about harassment prevention training has changed again, giving employers an extra year to start training.
The Legislature passed and Governor Newsom recently signed SB 778, which extends deadlines for this training. All employers now have until January 1, 2021 (rather than 2020) to implement one hour of harassment prevention training for nonsupervisory employees and to implement two hours of harassment prevention training for supervisory employees. Also, employers with 50 or more employees who provided supervisor harassment prevention training in 2018 can now wait until 2020 to schedule refresher training.
The Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) will now have more time to prepare and make available its legislatively mandated online harassment training for employers to use to comply with these requirements.
Employers with 50 or more employees who are already on a two-year track to provide supervisory employee harassment refresher training in 2019 should still proceed with such refresher training this year and should continue providing initial harassment prevention training to new supervisory employees within six months of hire.
As with any new law, implementation is always an issue, which is one of the main reasons that the Legislature extended the deadline here. We will continue to provide additional information as to the best way to implement this law for both your current and future employees. For more information and for training, contact Ross Schwartz, Dick Semerdjian, Sarah Evans, or John Schena.