California Online Sexual Harassment Prevention Training

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) has released its California online non-supervisory sexual harassment prevention training courses. The training courses are available here. Employees must be paid for time spent taking this training. This online training from DFEH is a compliant option available to employers to meet the California requirement for non-supervisory training. This requirement can also be met through in-person, virtual, and other online training providers.

The Law

California law requires all employers with five or more employees to provide one hour of sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training to non-supervisory employees and two hours of training to supervisors and managers once every two years. (Employers with 50 or more employees were already required to provide training to supervisors.)Current employees must receive training by January 1, 2021. Beginning January 1, 2021, new supervisory employees in workplaces of five or more employees must be trained within six months of assuming their supervisory position, and new non-supervisory employees must be trained within six months of hire.

Employer Requirements

Employers must retain a record of all employees’ training for a minimum of two years. Employers must also provide employees this poster, this fact sheet, or equivalent information. To learn more about these requirements, please see the DFEH’s Frequently Asked Questions.

Read about how to prepare for violence in the workplace here

What Employees Should Know About the DFEH Training Option

At the end of the training, employees will be able to save, print, take a screenshot, or email their certificate of completion. Make sure employees know how they should save the certificate before they begin. Employees  should also be informed that the training module will not save their progress, so if employees refresh or reload a page, they may have to restart from the beginning.

Why is this training required

California takes sexual harassment very seriously. Despite the greater awareness of sexual harassment and its harms, many workers are still subjected to harassment because of their gender or other protected characteristics. These trainings are legally required and designed to educate or remind everyone about what is and what is not acceptable behavior in the workplace.