I was recently speaking at a business network meeting when a business owner asked if she should be concerned about California’s new sexual harassment law, AB1825. This business owner runs her company with 18 full-time employees, 20 part-time employees, 8 temporary workers, and 5 sales subcontractors located in various states.

Requirement: 50 + employees

At first glance, it appears that you don’t meet the 50+ employee requirement that determines whether you need to train your supervisors. However, a closer look at the law reveals that temporary service workers and independent contractors, regardless of where they are located, are included in the total employee count.

Requirement: Training must cover all aspects of harassment, discrimination and retaliation.

Training should address retaliation and: harassment and discrimination based on sex, race / color, religion, age, and national origin. Typically, previous trainings did not include these areas.

Another business owner wanted to know if they could continue training in the same way as the previous year’s training.

Requirement: A system in place to track and document employee engagement and compliance

The answer is maybe yes, maybe no. If the training included all forms of harassment and discrimination AND tracking employee engagement throughout training (not just through check-in and check-out sheets) AND assessed your understanding of the material AND You can provide evidence, then yes, continue training as in previous years.

One business owner, one on a very tight budget, commented “it’s good that I only have to train 5 supervisors, because I can’t afford to train more.”

Requirement: Businesses must provide a harassment-free workplace for everyone.

With this in mind, how harassment-free will the workplace be if this owner only trains supervisors? . And if the employee makes a claim, will the money saved by training just the supervisors be enough to pay the attorneys, lost production time, and / or punitive damages? Probably not.

conclusion:

Regardless of the number of employees, the location of the employees, or prior training, employers must protect their business from claims of harassment and discrimination and comply with the law. Make sure your company is protected by training all employees in the prevention of harassment and discrimination.