New York State employers can breathe a sigh of relief today now that New York State has released its final Sexual Harassment Guidelines for employers.  Most importantly, these guidelines extend the time from the January 1, 2019 deadline previously set forth in the August draft guidance which was clearly unrealistic providing employers with only a few months to ensure compliance.  These new Guidelines are more realistic and thus now require New York State employers to ensure compliance by providing sexual harassment training to all employees including all exempt and non-exempt full-time and part-time workers, seasonal workers and temporary workers by October 9, 2019.

The Sexual Harassment Guidance does make clear that the training must be interactive which means that simply watching a video or reading a document would not be sufficient.  What does Interactive mean?    The Guidance tells us that it would include the following:

"Training may be online, so long as it is interactive. Examples of employee participation include:

• If the training is web-based, it has questions at the end of a section and the employee must select the right answer;
• If the training is web-based, the employees have an option to submit a question online and receive an answer immediately or in a timely manner;
• In an in-person or live training, the presenter asks the employees questions or gives them time throughout the presentation to ask questions;
• Web-based or in-person trainings that provide a Feedback Survey for employees to turn in after they have completed the training" 

Even though employers now have some additional months to provide this sexual harassment training, they should not delay.  It is imperative that all New York employers provide this sexual harassment training to all workers and remember that the training must be in the language that your employees speak. HR Learning Center LLC provides sexual harassment training for managers and employees of New York employers that is legally compliant with the new law.  Contact us today at info@hrlearningcenter.com for additional information or to schedule a training seminar/webinar.