Preventing Harassment & Discrimination for Employees – California Course Overview
California Senate Bill 1343 (SB 1343) requires all employers with 5 or more employees to provide at least one hour of sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training to all non-supervisory employees within six months of hire and once every two years thereafter. This mandatory training requirement reflects California’s recognition that workplace harassment creates negative environments that ruin working relationships, lower productivity, and result in costly administrative actions and litigation. Harassment becomes unlawful when enduring offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment or when conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive.
This comprehensive 1-hour course meets California SB 1343 training standards and provides employees with awareness of laws and issues relating to harassment, discrimination, and bullying in the workplace. Through realistic scenarios, employees learn to recognize discriminatory practices associated with race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation), national origin, age, physical or mental disability, and other protected characteristics under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), enabling them to contribute to workplaces free from harassment and discrimination.
Preventing Harassment & Discrimination for Employees – California Course Content
Lesson 1: Introduction and Objectives
California’s SB 1343 employee training mandate, scope of training requirement, importance of harassment-free workplaces, course objectives, organizational commitment to compliance and respectful workplace, employee rights and responsibilities
Lesson 2: California Discrimination and Harassment Laws
Federal law (Title VII of Civil Rights Act, EEOC enforcement), California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), California Civil Rights Department, protected characteristics under FEHA, broader protections under California law compared to federal law, employer liability for harassment, employee rights to file complaints
Lesson 3: Sexual Harassment
Definition of sexual harassment under California law, two forms, examples of sexual harassment, gender-based harassment, pregnancy discrimination and harassment, harassment based on gender identity and gender expression, harassment based on sexual orientation, reasonable person standard considering circumstances and perspective of person experiencing harassment
Lesson 4: Other Forms of Harassment
Harassment based on race, harassment based on religion, harassment based on national origin and ancestry, harassment based on age, harassment based on disability, abusive conduct under AB 2053, bullying vs. harassment distinction
Lesson 5: How to Report Harassment
Importance of reporting harassment promptly, organizational reporting procedures, multiple reporting channels, what to include in report, documenting incidents, preserving evidence, protection against retaliation for reporting in good faith, investigation process overview, employee cooperation obligations, interim protective measures, employer’s duty to prevent and correct harassment
