If you are an employer with 50 or more employees, you probably already know that you are required by California law to provide at least two hours of sexual harassment training to all supervisory employees within 6 months of their becoming a supervisor. You also must repeat the training at least once every two years. Did you know, however, that starting this year you are required to include anti-bullying training?
AB 2053, which was effective January 1, 2015, requires that employers subject to the sexual harassment training requirement include in that training a component around “prevention of abusive conduct.” The law defines abusive conduct as follows: “Abusive conduct” means conduct of an employer or employee in the workplace, with malice, that a reasonable person would find hostile, offensive, and unrelated to an employer’s legitimate business interests. Abusive conduct may include repeated infliction of verbal abuse, such as the use of derogatory remarks, insults, and epithets, verbal or physical conduct that a reasonable person would find threatening, intimidating, or humiliating, or the gratuitous sabotage or undermining of a person’s work performance.
All employers, no matter their size, must take reasonable steps to prevent discrimination and harassment from occurring. They must help ensure a workplace free from sexual harassment by posting in the workplace a poster from the Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
Although the training requirement applies only to supervisory employees, we recommend that all employees receive training to prevent sexual harassment and abusive conduct. Also, we highly recommend reviewing and updating your employee handbook with language that conveys that it is a violation of company policy to engage in workplace bullying and that complaints of bullying will be taken very seriously.
As always, please consult legal counsel if you have any questions or issues regarding harassment or bullying in your workplace.
If you need help updating your employee handbook or need a sexual harassment instructor, please contact me.