California employers now have until January 1, 2021, to provide sexual harassment training to their non-supervisory employees.

Last year, California passed SB 1343, which expanded sexual harassment training requirements for employers. All employers with five or more employees were required to provide sexual harassment training to non-supervisory (or “hourly”) employees by January 1, 2020. These employers are now required to provide sexual harassment training to employees as follows:

• Supervisors/Managers must receive two hours of training; • Non-supervisory employees must receive one hour of training.

What has changed? The deadline for employers to train their non-supervisory employees has been extended from January 1, 2020, to January 1, 2021. In other words, if an employer has not already trained its non-supervisory employees, they now have the year 2020 to do so – so long as they train all non-supervisory employees by January 1, 2021.

California employers initially had until January 1, 2020, to get in compliance and train all of their non-supervisory employees on sexual harassment. Due to the confusion of these requirements, California Governor Gavin Newsom recently passed SB 778 to clear up the confusion and extend the deadline to January 1, 2021.

What has not changed? This recent extension (SB 778) does not affect (1) supervisors/managers or (2) seasonal or temporary workers.

• Managers: California employers must continue to provide sexual harassment training to supervisors/managers every two years and within 6 months of their hire date. • Seasonal or Temporary Workers: Starting January 1, 2020, employers must provide sexual harassment training to seasonal or temporary workers who work less than 6 months. Training must take within 30 calendar days from their hire date or within these employees’ first 100 hours worked, whichever comes first.

What if we’ve already trained our hourly employees in 2019? First off, great job! Once employees are trained, they must be re-trained once every 2 years. So, if an employer has already trained its employees (supervisory and non-supervisor), they do not need re-train these employees for two years, or until 2021.

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