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Governor Signs Bill Clarifying Deadline for Anti-Harassment Training

For Chief Legal Counsel, COOs, Human Resources Executives, Government Relations Staff

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A bill extending the deadline for providing sexual harassment prevention training to Dec. 31, 2020 — Senate Bill (SB) 778 (Committee on Labor, Public Employment and Retirement) — was signed into law by the Governor last week. The new law also allows employers who have provided anti-harassment training to either supervisory or non-supervisory employees between Jan. 1, 2019, and Dec. 31, 2020, to maintain their existing bi-annual training schedule.

The law addresses significant confusion over the deadlines in SB 1343 (Chapter 956, Statutes of 2018), which requires employers with five or more employees to provide sexual harassment prevention training to non-supervisory staff — effective Jan. 1, 2020 — and every two years thereafter. SB 1343 included grandfather language for training conducted in 2019, but its application to existing supervisory training requirements was unclear. SB 778 clarifies the deadlines and includes an urgency clause so that it takes effect immediately.