Learning Today

STOP SEXUAL HARASSMENT ACT

graspU supports the Stop Sexual Harassment Act (NY State & NY City)

The Harvey Weinstein scandal sparked the #MeToo movement and with that, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the state budget on April 12^th 2018, which mandates NY State employers provide employees with annual sexual harassment training beginning in October 2018.

Interactive Training Definition

California and Connecticut were the original states leading this mandatory employee training, and now many states are passing legislation mandating sexual harassment training. New York State and New York City have joined this movement and now require sexual harassment training via the Stop Sexual Harassment Act. Employers must provide an interactive training and a written anti-harassment policy to employees starting in October, all of which can be established on graspU.com.  Many employers are nervous about the definition of “interactive training” initially assuming that the training needed to be done in person/on-site.  However, after much research and in looking to authorities such as SHRM (Society of Human Resource Management), it appears that the training can be done online using an advanced Learning Management System (LMS), such as graspU.com, which allows interactive content to be accessed by employees including lessons (in all formats), quizzes, final reviews, scenarios, vignettes, etc.   “Unofficially, the general consensus right now is that it does not have to be in-person training, but there will be formal guidelines published to the Division of Human Rights’ website …, and it is highly likely that this will be addressed,” said Katherin Nukk-Freeman, co-founder of SHIFT HR Compliance Training in Chatham, N.J.

Sexual Harassment Prevention Policies & Forms

The new law will require employers to adopt a sexual harassment prevention policy which prohibits sexual harassment and provides examples of prohibited conduct, this includes information concerning federal and state sexual harassment laws, a standard complaint form, a procedure for the timely and confidential investigation of complaints including due process for all parties, informs employees of their rights of redress, clearly states sexual harassment is a form of employee misconduct and that sanctions will be enforced against individuals engaging in sexual harassment and against supervisory management who knowingly allow such behavior to continue. graspU’s Learning Management System also enables employers to post their sexual harassment prevention policies and forms on the LMS in order to contain all of the documentation and training in one simplified platform.

Attendance Tracking

Employers should be advised to track their employees’ training attendance.  This type of evidence would be very helpful in the event an employer finds itself defending against allegations of sexual harassment.  This can be done via an advanced Corporate Learning Management System (LMS), such as graspU.com via the system’s Timestamping feature. Timestamping via the graspU Learning Management System (LMS) automatically calculates time spent on training for payroll purposes.

Ongoing Training

New York City Council just passed the Stop Sexual Harassment Act that requires all employers with 15 or more employees (including interns), to train employees on sexual harassment.  The New York City law requires that employers conduct annual anti-sexual harassment training for all employees.   Both initial and recurring sexual harassment training is easily handled on the graspU Learning Management System (LMS), by enabling HR Professionals and Sexual Harassment Experts to effortlessly update their training year after year to keep it current, fresh, and interesting.

In New York City, the new law expands protection to non-employees, because employers have the obligation to protect vendors and contractors from sexual harassment too.

Bibliography and Additional information regarding NY State Stop Sexual Harassment Act:

• https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2018/06/01/mandatory-sexual-harassment-training-now-required-in-new-york-state/
• https://www.laboremploymentlawblog.com/2018/04/articles/sexual-harassment/ny-passes-budget/
• https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/state-and-local-updates/pages/new-york-harassment-training-must-be-interactive.aspx
• Carol Flynn, SPHR, National Expert / Sexual Harassment Policies & Training: cflynn@hrsolutionsfl.com
• graspU: 800-458-4020 or graspU.com or support@graspU.com