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Employers who are currently rushing to meet the January 1, 2020 deadline can take a breather. The California legislature recognized that requiring employers who had their last training in 2018 to provide training In 2019 in order to meet the January 1, 2020 deadline would force employers to provide the training twice in a two year period.

SB778 addresses this issue by extending the deadline to provide the training to January 1, 2021. Employers who have already provided the training in 2019 are not required to provide the training refresher until two years after the date of the training. S.B. 1343 requires that all employers of 5 or more employees provide 1 hour of sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training to non-managerial employees and 2 hours of sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training to managerial employees once every two years. Existing law requires the trainings to include harassment based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation and to include practical examples of such harassment and to be provided by trainers or educators with knowledge and expertise in those areas.

The bill also requires the Department to produce and post both training courses to its website, which employers may utilize instead of hiring a trainer. There is no requirement that the 5 employees or contractors work at the same location or that all work or reside in California. Under the DFEH’s regulations, the definition of “employee” includes full-time, part-time, and temporary employees.
By what date must employees be trained? Both managerial and non-managerial employees must receive training by January 1, 2021. After January 1, 2021, employees must be retrained once every two years. That means that all employees statewide must be retrained by January 1, 2023. What if my employees were trained between January 1 and December 31, 2018? The law requires that employees be trained during calendar year 2020. Employees who were trained in 2018 or before will need to be retrained.