Sexual Harassment Training and Prevention

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Your business must comply with your state’s requirements

To start with, many states have specific sexual harassment laws and requirements that a business owner is required to adhere to. Make sure that your business is in compliance with those laws that you are required to follow.

These laws could involve training of supervisors, posting of mandated posters, creation of a formal complaint policy for sexual harassment and/or any of a number of procedures.

In California for example, recent passage of Assembly Bill 1825, and Government Code Section 12950.1, changes the requirements of the employer in regards to sexual harassment training and prevention.

By January 1, 2006, employers with 50 or more employees must provide ALL of their supervisory employees who are employed as of July 1, 2005, and all new supervisory employees within six months of their assuming the position, with at least two hours of sexual harassment prevention training.

In addition, the training must be repeated no less than once every two years, with each and every supervisory employee.

For the purposes of Section 12950.1, "employer" means any person regularly employing 50 or more persons or regularly receiving the services of 50 or more persons providing services pursuant to a contract, or any person acting as an agent of an employer, directly or indirectly, the state, or any political or civil subdivision of the state, and cities.

Now, many construction business owners will undoubtedly convince themselves that they don’t need this sexual harassment training for their employees because they have less than 50 employees, or they’re not located in California, or everyone in the field is of the same sex, or any of a number of reasons.

Don’t be one of those contractors. No matter how many employees you have, or which state your business is located in, or if all of your employees are the same sex or whatever reason imaginable, you must take steps to protect yourself and your business from sexual harassment lawsuits, and the sooner you do this the better.

Next page: Institute a training and education program