Course Topic: Preventing Workplace Harassment -- Supervisors' 3rd Edition

Course Description
Recent Supreme Court decisions and EEOC Guidelines have made it clear that employers should not simply hand out an anti-harassment policy but must actually provide training to each employee on how to prevent sexual harassment and other forms of workplace harassment. Global Compliance's Brightline online course, Preventing Workplace Harassment, provides employees legally sound and engaging instruction on this critical topic.

While sexual harassment lawsuits tend to grab the headlines, employers' risk of harassment lawsuits based on other protected characteristics is actually greater. Of the 109,472 harassment charges that were filed with the EEOC during the 1990s, only 33% were sex-based while 14% were national-origin-based, and 43% were race-based. Employers can expect harassment charges based on age to increase as the "baby boomers" age. In addition, since September 11, 2001, the number of religious and national origin harassment and discrimination claims filed with the EEOC has increased dramatically.

What are the learning objectives of the course and what topics will be covered?
It is simply not enough to direct employees to avoid harassment. Rather, Global Compliance takes a more intellectual approach to identifying, reporting, and avoiding harassment in the workplace. Throughout the course, interactive scenarios highlight not only sexual harassment, but all types of unlawful harassment. Although there are many learning objectives covered throughout the training, at a basic level, participants will be able to:

• Recognize what is and is not unlawful harassment and how to report it
• Follow company policies and procedures with regards to consensual dating in the workplace
• Respect the parameters of displaying religious materials in the workplace
• Identify appropriate vs. inappropriate physical behavior such as a hug or shoulder rub in the workplace
• Set appropriate expectations with regards to harassment at organization parties or other off-site events

Global Compliance's course includes the following sections:

1. Introduction
2. Harassment in a Nutshell
3. Verbal Harassment
4. Physical Harassment
5. Visual and Electronic Harassment
6. Romance in the Workplace
7. If You Believe You are Being Harassed
8. Retaliation
9. Supervisor Duties
10. Quiz Show

All employees must complete each of these sections to complete the course. In addition, supervisory employees complete an additional section, "Supervisors' Duties," which addresses their additional responsibilities for preventing and reporting workplace harassment. For example, this section addresses what a supervisor should do if an employee complains of harassment but asks the supervisor to keep the complaint confidential and take no action.

The non-supervisors' version of Preventing Workplace Harassment takes about 50 minutes to complete, and the supervisors' version takes one hour to complete. 

In addition, Global Compliance has created versions of its Preventing Workplace Harassment course to comply with California and Connecticut's sexual harassment training laws. Those laws require employers to provide two hours of sexual harassment training to any supervisor who supervises employees in those states. Also, the California and Connecticut laws require the courses to address certain topics that are specific to California and Connecticut law. In California, for example, the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission (FEHC) issued new proposed regulations regarding California Law AB 1825 on March 27, 2007.

Rather than forcing all supervisors nation-wide to take additional instruction that may not be relevant to them, Global Compliance created separate versions of the course to be taken only by supervisors in Connecticut and by supervisors in California.