Our team gets asked all the time about their deadline for training:
There are so many employment laws in California — I don’t want to get in trouble. So when do I need to provide harassment training to my employees so that I am compliant with all laws (including SB 1343 and SB 778)?
Below is a helpful “best practices” chart that will help you determine when you need to train in order to comply with all Federal and California laws:
You have never trained or you trained years ago
- If you have more than 50 employees: train your managers and supervisors ASAP. In the event of a harassment lawsuit, the plaintiff’s attorney will ask if your managers and supervisors have been trained. You will want to be able to answer that you have trained them and that you are compliant with all laws. You will then need to train your employees before December 31, 2020. Your team will need to be retrained on every 2-year anniversary date. Therefore, it’s recommended to train your employees around the same time your managers are trained so that your entire team is on the same training schedule.
- If you have between 5 and 49 employees (including interns, independent contractors, and volunteers): train your entire team before December 31, 2020 to be compliant with the law.
You last trained in 2017
Hopefully, you trained your managers again in 2019 to comply with the 2-year requirement. If not, then train your managers again ASAP. In the event of a harassment lawsuit, the plaintiff’s attorney will ask if your managers and supervisors have been trained. You will want to be able to answer that you have trained them and that you are compliant with all laws. The deadline to have your employees trained is December 2020. Therefore, you have two options:
- If you want to keep things simple from here on out, get your entire team on the same training schedule by training everyone ASAP.
- Alternatively, you can train everybody at different intervals so long as everyone has the training by December 31, 2020. This makes things more difficult though because your workforce will be on separate training intervals — making the 2-year re-training more difficult to wrangle.
You last trained in 2018
Train both managers and employees by the 2-year anniversary of your last training. For example, if you trained your managers in June 2018, it is recommended to train both your managers and employees around June 2020. You will then be fully compliant and will need to train again around June 2022 and every 2 years thereafter.
You last trained in 2019
- If you only trained your managers: then you will need to train your employees before December 31, 2020. However, that would put your managers and employees on different training schedules. To simplify your schedule, the Compliance Pros recommend training both your managers and employees before December 2020.
- If you trained both your managers and employees in 2019: then you don’t need to retrain in 2020. instead, your next training should be around the 2-year anniversary of your last training date. Example: if you trained your entire team in July 2019, then your next training time should be on or before July 2021.
You last trained in 2020
If you have trained both your managers and employees, then you don’t have to train again until the 2-year anniversary of the last training. Example: if you trained your entire team in January 2020, then they should be re-trained in January 2022.
Conclusion
With the law constantly evolving, keeping up with the legal requirements can become a headache for your Human Resources Department. The Compliance Pros is one of the only companies in California offering live, fun and in-person training that is fully compliant with the law. In fact, our team is comprised of attorneys who are legal experts in the field of harassment law.
Therefore, please reach out to me personally at Karin@TheCompliancePros.com with any questions or give us a call at (310) 597-1600. Our company offers everything you need to be compliant, including: harassment trainings, HR consulting, and even legal services! And our knowledgable team of experts has over 30 years of combined training experience and has provided over 2500 harassment trainings!
The Compliance Pros – Live Harassment Prevention Training Done Right!