Calif. Government Code §§12950, 12950.1

Amended by S.B. 1343 and S.B. 778

Effective date: January 1, 2019

By January 1, 2021, employers with five or more employees need to provide at least two hours of sexual harassment prevention training to all supervisory employees and at least one hour of training to all nonsupervisory employees every two years.

New employees and those newly assuming a supervisory position need to complete their training within six months of hire or assumption of supervisory position.

This law affects real estate brokers and agents, despite their independent contractor status.

The training may be completed:

  • with other training;
  • in a group or individually; and
  • in shorter segments, if the segments meet the time requirement.

The Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) offers free training courses online, but employers may also develop their own training materials. Employers can also use the DFEH’s Sexual Harassment and Abusive Conduct Prevention Toolkit in conjunction with an eligible trainer. [2 Calif. Code of Regulations §11024(a)(9)(A)]

Beginning January 1, 2020, employers need to provide this training to:

  • seasonal employees;
  • temporary employees; and
  • employees hired to work for fewer than six months;

within 30 days of their hire date or within their first 100 hours worked, whichever is first.

In the case of a temporary employee employed by a temp agency to work for a client, it is the temp agency’s responsibility to provide this training.

An employer who provides this training to an employee in 2019 is not required to provide it again until two years thereafter.

Information equivalent to the DFEH’s information sheet on sexual harassment, which an employer may provide to employees in lieu of the DFEH’s information sheet, needs to include a web link to the sexual harassment online training courses on the DFEH’s site.

Read the code text here.