Fully compliant with AB 1825 regulations 

• Content of Global Compliance's Preventing Workplace Harassment-California Supervisors' Edition
  
  Global Compliance's award-winning online course, Preventing Workplace Harassment, provides employees the information they need to prevent and report sexual harassment and other forms of workplace harassment, regardless of the state in which employees work. Information is provided to employees not only on federal law but also on the legally protected characteristics in each state and in many localities. To learn more about the content of this course, click here.
  
  Like supervisors in all states, supervisors who supervise employees in California take the same sections found in Global Compliance's online course, Preventing Workplace Harassment. In addition, those supervisors receive additional instruction. The additional instruction is designed to meet California AB 1825's requirement that the training:
  
  
  1. be two hours long;
     
  2. be effective and interactive;
     
  3. provide information and practical guidance to learners;
     
  4. cover relevant federal and state law;
     
  5. explain prohibitions against and the prevention and correction of sexual harassment;
     
  6. include practical examples to instruct supervisors in the prevention of harassment, discrimination and retaliation; and
     
  7. describe remedies available to victims of sexual harassment.

 

• Will Global Compliance's online course help us ensure that we train all current supervisors and all new supervisors within 6 months of hire?
  
  California AB 1825 imposes an ongoing obligation for employers to train new supervisory personnel within six months of their assumption of a supervisory position. If the employer chooses to provide this training in-person in a classroom setting, it must ensure that it provides a class at least once every six months, and that all persons who have obtained a supervisory position in the previous six months attend that class.
  
  With Global Compliance's online course, current supervisors can take the course at their convenience and new employees can be trained as soon as they are hired or promoted to a supervisory position. Global Compliance's tracking system makes it almost effortless for employers to document that each supervisor received the training in the time specified by the law.
  
  More information about training new supervisors is available in Global Compliance's article on the FEHC's regulations implementing AB 1825. To read the article, click here.
  
  
• Will Global Compliance offer refresher courses for supervisors every two years as required by California AB 1825?
  
  All supervisory employees must be provided the mandated training once every two years. The law makes clear that the requirement that two hours of sexual harassment training be provided to supervisors every two years represents a minimum threshold. Given court decisions and EEOC guidelines that have indicated that training on sexual harassment and other forms of workplace harassment must be provided "periodically," prudent employers should strongly consider providing harassment prevention training every year.
  
  Global Compliance offers refresher courses for both supervisory and non-supervisory employees each year. The refresher courses remind employees of the major principles that they learned from previous Global Compliance courses on harassment prevention, address current topics relating to workplace harassment, and reinforce the employer's commitment to a harassment-free workplace.
  
  In addition, to meet the specific requirements of California AB 1825, Global Compliance provides a course designed specifically for California supervisors every two years.
  
  
• Is Global Compliance an expert in EEO law as AB 1825 requires for the training provider?
  
  The regulations specifically requires that the training--be it instructor-led training or online training--be provided by a qualified "trainer." As defined in further detail below, the trainer must be either an attorney, professor, instructor, human resource professional or harassment prevention consultant with at least two years of expertise in employment law and/or harassment prevention.
  
  AB 1825 and the accompanying regulations, of course, merely codify what courts around the country have said for years. Specifically, courts have made clear that employers must ensure that the training provider:
  • Completely understand the complex body of harassment and discrimination laws; and
  • Keep up-to-date with new cases that change the interpretations of these laws.
  
  Global Compliance training--be it online or in-person training--is all developed and delivered by leading experts in harassment, discrimination, and retaliation law. These experts include Andrew Foose and Michael Johnson, Co-Presidents of Global Compliance's Brightline Learning Division. They are former civil rights attorneys in the U.S. Department of Justice, where they brought one of the Justice Department's first "pattern or practice" sexual harassment cases. Mr. Johnson and/or Mr. Foose have been:
  
  
  • Selected by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") to speak at EEOC conferences around the country, including several EEOC conferences in California
  • Selected by the United Nations to consult on the development of the UN's new sexual harassment policy and to provide training on how to investigate sexual harassment complaints and other employee misconduct in the UN's headquarters in New York and in its peacekeeping missions in the Congo and in Sierra Leone
  • Served as expert witnesses in sexual harassment cases
  • Provided training to organizations around the country on how to prevent and properly respond to allegations of sexual harassment and other forms of workplace misconduct
  
  Additionally, General Counsel of Global Compliance's Brightline Learning Division, Katrina Campbell, has extensive experience helping companies meet their compliance and ethics obligations. She has worked as a litigation and employment law attorney with a national law firm and has served as in-house counsel for two major corporations. Her work has included leading the corporate governance initiative for an in-house legal department and developing and delivering compliance training programs for legal counsel, human resources professionals, and other employees. Ms. Campbell is active with the American Bar Association's (ABA's) Labor & Employment Section as a speaker, writer, and advocate for corporate counsel involvement in the ABA.
  
  Michael Johnson is a graduate of Duke University and Harvard Law School. Andrew Foose is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University Law School. Katrina Campbell is a graduate of Hampton University and Harvard Law School.

 

• Does Global Compliance's online course meet California AB 1825's requirement that the training be "effective" and "interactive"?
  
  The California Fair Employment and Housing Commission's regulations implementing AB 1825 explicitly state that online training can comply with AB 1825, as long as the training meets each of the law's requirements.
  
  California AB 1825 specifically requires the training to be "effective" and "interactive." The FEHC's regulations on AB 1825 state that any course shall include questions that assess learning, skill-building activities that assess the supervisor's application and understanding of content learned, and numerous hypothetical scenarios about harassment with follow-up questions so that supervisors remain engaged in the training.
  
  Properly designed online harassment prevention courses can meet both requirements. In fact, online courses are often more "effective" than classroom presentations because in a classroom setting employees can just passively listen or tune out the instructor without learning the material. In contrast, well-designed online courses can require the learner to answer questions and actively engage with the course material. Indeed, Global Compliance's online course requires the user to demonstrate that he or she has learned the information presented before being allowed to complete the course.
  
  To meet the "interactive" requirement, the online course should provide a means for learners to submit questions online and have their questions answered online. While AB 1825 does not specifically address this point, the FEHC's final regulations do. They require any e-learning program to provide a link or directions on how to contact directly a qualified trainer. These trainers or educators must be available to answer questions and to provide guidance and assistance on harassment training issues within a reasonable period of time after the supervisor asks the question, but no more than two business days after the question is asked. Global Compliance's courses allow for users to submit questions, even anonymously, and receive answers to those questions online. In addition, Global Compliance offers an "Ask the Expert" service whereby its subject matter experts will track and answer those questions for the employer. To learn more about Global Compliance's "Ask the Expert" service, please click here.
  
  
• Which employers are covered by AB 1825?
  
  The law applies to all employers who operate in California and who regularly employ 50 or more employees or independent contractors. For example, if an employer has 40 employees and regularly receives the services of 5 temporary service workers and 5 contractors, the employer is covered.
  
  Assuming that the employer employs 50 or more persons within the state of California, the employer is covered even if the employer is headquartered outside of California. In addition, the FEHC's final regulations state that the law applies to any employer who employs 50 or more persons, even if the employer employs fewer than 50 people in California. For more information on how employees and contractors would be counted under the law, click here.
  
  
• Which employees are considered "supervisors" who must be trained?
  
  The AB 1825 final regulations define "supervisor" to include any individual with the authority "to hire, transfer, suspend, layoff, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or the responsibility to direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend that action, if . . . the exercise of that authority . . . requires the use of independent judgment." As a result, employers should provide supervisory training as required by this law to any employee who has responsibility for any of the above personnel actions, even if the employee does not have an official supervisory title, or even if the individual is a contractor. Employees will not necessarily be considered supervisors for liability purposes just because they receive supervisory training. The FEHC has included in its regulations a statement that: "[a]ttending harassment training does not create an inference that an employee is a supervisor or that a contractor is an employee or a supervisor."
  
  The California legislature acted to clarify the reach of California's mandatory harassment training law, AB 1825. AB 2095, signed by the Governor in September 2006, limits the mandatory harassment training requirements of AB 1825 to only supervisors located within the state of California.
  
  
• Should employers also provide training on other forms of unlawful workplace harassment?
  
  Yes. The AB 1825 regulations do not require that the entire two-hour course be limited to education on only sexual harassment. In fact, the regulations specifically state that "an employer may provide a definition of and train about other forms of harassment covered by the FEHA [Fair Employment and Housing Act]." As long as specific content requirements on sexual harassment are met, the training can include instruction on other types of harassment and discrimination. The law itself makes clear that this training requirement is intended to represent a "minimum threshold" and does not "relieve any employer from providing for longer, more frequent, or more elaborate training and education regarding workplace harassment or other forms of unlawful discrimination."
  
  Harassment and discrimination based on sex is just one of the many types of discrimination protected by state and federal law. After the Supreme Court's landmark decisions in the 1998 Faragher and Ellerth cases, federal court decisions and EEOC Guidelines have made clear that employers must ensure that harassment prevention training covers not just sexual harassment but all types of unlawful harassment and retaliation.
  
  Indeed, simply training on sexual harassment will not protect you from other types of harassment or retaliation claims. For example, in Reed v. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store,1 the jury found that the plaintiff had proved her case of sexual harassment but that the employer was not liable for the harassment because it had made reasonable efforts to prevent harassment, including providing harassment prevention training. The jury, however, found that the employer had retaliated against the plaintiff and awarded punitive damages for the retaliation. The employer argued that its training and other efforts to prevent sexual harassment should also protect it from punitive damages against retaliation. The court disagreed. According to the court,
  
  
  Title VII clearly prohibits more than sexual harassment....[and] punitive damages are also available under Title VII for more than just sexual harassment....[An employer's] good-faith compliance must relate to the specific claim being raised under Title VII. (emphasis added).
  
  
  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, 33% were sex-based, 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. The EEOC reports that between October 1, 2001 and September 30, 2002, allegations of religious bias were up 21%, age bias were up 14.5%, and national origin bias were up 13% over the previous year.
  
  Thus, not only must California employers provide supervisors two hours of training every two years which includes extensive content on sexual harassment, but they also must periodically provide additional training on other forms of workplace harassment and discrimination to all employees.

 

• Should employers also provide workplace harassment training to non-supervisory employees?
  
  While the new California law only directly spells out California employers' responsibilities to provide sexual harassment training to supervisors, employers still have a responsibility under California and federal law to provide workplace harassment prevention training periodically to non-supervisory employees as well.
  
  In addition to the requirements of AB 1825, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act ("FEHA") requires employers to take "all reasonable steps to prevent harassment from occurring."2 According to the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing ("DFEH"), such reasonable steps include providing all employees sexual harassment training. Indeed, according to the DFEH, a sexual harassment training program for all employees "is not only required by law, but it is the most practical way to avoid or limit damages if harassment should occur despite preventative efforts." According to the DFEH, "all employees should be made aware of the seriousness of violations of the sexual harassment policy." In addition to sexual harassment training, all employees must receive from their employers a copy of the DFEH pamphlet "Sexual Harassment is Forbidden by Law" (DFEH-185) or an equivalent document.
  
  Under federal law, EEOC guidelines indicate that employers periodically "should provide training to all employees to ensure they understand their rights and responsibilities" relating to workplace harassment.3 Employers who fail to provide harassment prevention training to all employees may be unable to raise an affirmative defense to a harassment lawsuit.4
  
  Thus, California employers should continue to provide periodic workplace harassment prevention training to all employees-not just supervisors. The training provided to non-supervisors, however, may be shorter than two hours and does not have to specifically address each of the topics listed in AB 1825.
  
  Global Compliance's Preventing Workplace Harassment course addresses all of the topics relevant to non-supervisory employees.
  
  
  

To Learn More

To view a course demo, click here.

To learn more about the Preventing Workplace Harassment-California Supervisors' 2nd Edition, call us at (800) 507-8491 or contact us.

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1. 171 F. Supp. 2d 741 (M.D. Tenn. 2001)
   
2. Cal. Gov Code §12950.
   
3. EEOC, Enforcement Guidance: Vicarious Liability for Unlawful Harassment by Supervisors, No. 915.002, June 18, 1999 (emphasis added)
   
4. See, Yaccarino v. U.S. Postmaster General. EEOC 170-AO-8812X (Sep. 6, 2001) (holding that the Post Office had failed to establish an affirmative defense because it could show no evidence "that training was provided by the agency to supervisors and employees to prevent harassment.")