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Harassment Threatens Businesses World Wide

Harassment in the workplace is one of the most strictly watched behaviors in business. Businesses all over the world are trying to keep lawsuits out of their offices, and workshops seem to be the best idea. In the US several states are attempting to pass regulations which require harassment compliance training. It?s now old news that California passed a law requiring mandatory harassment compliance training for all supervisors and that the initial compliance period ended on January 1, 2006. Many employers ramped up year-end training with a mad dash to the compliance deadline.

Since the statute only requires training every two years, those employers who trained supervisors in 2005 can now rest, right? Well not so fast says Jonathan Levy, CEO of Fair Measures Inc., a California legal training company. According to Levy, while the harassment training statute requires training every 2 years moving forward, there is an exception for new supervisors. All new supervisors must receive harassment compliance training within 6 months of becoming supervisors. In addition, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing clarified in its proposed regulations that the required trainings extend to supervisory employees who reside out of state who supervise California employees.

Consequently, employers who only trained California supervisors may have fallen short of the mark if they have supervisors out of state who supervise California employees. Employers need to look to a variety of solutions to meet full compliance. Levy says that although many employers are using computer based, instructorless e-training tools, there is a better solution. No matter what solutions employer?s use, now that the initial compliance period has ended it is not time to rest. Employers need to develop a strategy for ongoing compliance that encompasses both new supervisors and out-of-state managers who manage California employees.