SB 1343: Employers big and small must provide sexual harassment training to nearly all California employees

Senate Bill 1343 expands the coverage of California's sexual harassment and abusive conduct training requirements in two notable ways. First, employers with five or more employees must now provide sexual harassment training in accordance with California Government Code Section 12950.1. The law previously only applied to employers with at least 50 employees. Second, recognizing that the catalyst for change in the workplace must involve regular employees, covered employers must now provide the requisite training to both supervisory and nonsupervisory employees. Nonsupervisory employees include full-time, part-time, seasonal, temporary and any other employees hired to work for less than six months.

Under SB 1343, by Jan. 1, 2020, covered employers must provide at least two hours of sexual harassment and abusive conduct training to supervisors and at least one hour of such training to nonsupervisors, in each case within six months of their assumption of a position. Employers who provided the required training to an employee after Jan. 1, 2019, are not required to provide new training to meet the Jan. 1, 2020, deadline. After Jan. 1, 2020, employers must provide the required training to each California employee once every two years.

The required training can be completed by employees individually or as a group, and can be completed in shorter segments as long as the two-hour and one-hour requirements for supervisors and nonsupervisory employees are fulfilled, respectively.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2020, for seasonal, temporary or any employee who is hired to work for less than six months, a covered employer must provide sexual harassment and abusive conduct training within 30 calendar days after the hire date or within 100 hours worked, whichever occurs first. For temporary employees employed by a "temporary services employer" (as defined in California Labor Code Section 201.3), SB 1343 places the burden of providing this training with the temporary services employer, not the client.

Agricultural employers and farm labor contractors already providing sexual harassment training under California Labor Code Section 1684(a)(8) do not face duplicative training requirements. SB 1343 states that sexual harassment training for migrant and seasonal agricultural workers "shall be consistent with training for nonsupervisory employees" pursuant to Section 1684(a)(8). Compliance with Section 1684(a)(8) is also required beginning Jan. 1, 2020.

SB 1343 also mandates that the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing develop or obtain online interactive sexual harassment training courses for supervisory and nonsupervisory employees, and to make these courses available online for the public. The DFEH expects to have online training courses available by late 2019. Notwithstanding, employers are free to develop their own training modules, so long as such modules comply with and satisfy the employers' training obligations set forth in Government Code Sections 12950 and 12950.1.