Harassment Training Requirements

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EHC training seminars will position your employees to learn what constitutes specific violations of your company’s standards and policies and the EEOC laws, ( See below ), that govern sexual harassment. EHC training seminars will assure you that all of your employees know and understand the standards concerning violations of sexual harassment in the workplace. All employees will take a Pre-Test and Post-Test to determine exactly what they learned. All questions are discussed in a round table format. This test can also become a permanent part of the employee’s personnel file. This will assure HR that the attending employees both comprehend the state laws , EEOC statues, and your company’s sexual harassment policy.

Harassment training recommendations from the EEOC

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity (EEOC) is a federal agency responsible for enforcing laws that protect applicants and employees from discrimination due to their race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information. Aside from handling discrimination charges, a huge portion of their work is advocating for harassment prevention through research, community outreach, and developing educational resources for the public.

The agency never failed to express how important it is for employers to have anti-harassment strategies that are consistently and properly enforced. In a report released by the EEOC Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, several recommendations for dealing with harassment were offered, including the value of providing harassment training.

Anti-harassment Compliance Training

Although there is a need for further empirical data on the most effective types of training to prevent harassment, the EEOC took note of anecdotes from employers and trainers. Based on this anecdotal evidence, they determined that compliance training is an important part of any harassment prevention efforts. However, conducting training and calling it a day is simply not enough. Its effectiveness is amplified if it is treated as a part of a holistic effort instead of a stand-alone solution to eliminate the problem.

Furthermore, to be more effective, training programs should include certain components that are related and directed toward specific goals. Below are the findings of the EEOC based on insights they have gathered from professional experts.

Contents of Successful Compliance Training for Employees and Managers

Given that compliance training is about educating employees what harassment may look like, it should not solely focus on the definition set by the law. It is great to know what specific conduct is considered illegal. However, employees should also learn certain behaviors that may not be deemed unlawful but are considered unacceptable and, if left unchecked, may lead to illegal harassment.
Considering the first bullet point, it is also important for employers to clarify what practice or conduct are not categorized as harassment.
Compliance training should be conducted in consideration of the unique situations or characteristics of the workplace. It is not ideal to follow a one-size-fits-all approach.
Through compliance training, employees must be familiarized with both their rights and responsibilities should harassment occur in the workplace. The training should include information on how victims and witnesses can report a harassment incident internally.
The process of formally filing for complaints should be crystal clear to employees. They must be informed on how complaints will be investigated and be assured that they will not be retaliated against for reporting an incident.
In addition to general compliance training for all employees, managers and supervisors must be trained on how to address behavior or conduct that may lead to unlawful harassment.
Compliance training must instill a sense of accountability on all members of an organization, especially on managers and supervisors. When senior leaders at the top of the corporate hierarchy are held accountable, employees will be assured that the company or organization takes harassment seriously and that it will not be tolerated in the workplace.

Principles for the Structure of a Successful Compliance Training

Those at the highest levels must be deeply and visibly involved in training programs to cultivate trust and send the message that leadership is genuinely committed to eliminating existing harassment, as well as preventing further occurrences of unwanted behaviors in the future.
Mandatory anti-harassment training must be conducted regularly and key messaging should be reinforced.
- Annual training, at minimum, should be conducted.
- Training new hires is often overlooked; mandatory anti-harassment training should be incorporated into all employees’ onboarding programs.
- Separate training modules should be available for employees and for managers.
- As individuals are promoted from positions as individual contributors to managerial roles, anti-harassment training for managers is a critical activity to prepare them for future success.

Training sessions should be conducted live and interactively by qualified trainers so that employees will understand what conduct is considered unacceptable through realistic examples. In the event that the employer is unable to have a live trainer, online training should be tailored to the realities of a specific workplace.
Employers should evaluate the results of the training to be able to identify what’s working and what’s not.
Reinforcement of the training content plays an important part in sustaining positive outcomes.

Other types of training

Since organizational culture has a significant impact on the existence of issues such as harassment, discrimination, or bullying, the EEOC Select Task Force recommends two types of training that may help organizations create a culture of respect in the workplace. Although more research needs to be done to evaluate the effectiveness of these training, these can contribute to the prevention of workplace harassment by addressing the culture within the workplace.

Workplace Civility Training

Rather than focusing only on the legal aspect of harassment and discrimination, workplace civility training is mainly conducted to instill respect and civility in the workplace. Although it has not been determined as a harassment prevention tool per se, the EEOC Select Task Force believes that it can complement compliance training.

The primary focus of workplace civility training is to demonstrate how civility and respect is lived out in the workplace, thus empowering all members of the organization to embody it. Contents of workplace civility training include workplace norms, appropriate and inappropriate behaviors in the workplace, and may even feature training focused on skills such as interpersonal skills, conflict resolution, and effective supervisory techniques.

Bystander Intervention Training

Bystander intervention training for witnesses and observers is usually provided in schools as part of a violence or sexual assault prevention strategy, but increasingly is recognized as a critical element of workplace anti-harassment training. This type of training can increase employees’ sensitivity to forms of harassment that may be happening around them and empower them to take action rather than simply standing by.

Contents of such training may include identifying what constitutes an offensive behavior based on a person’s protected characteristic under employment non-discrimination laws, and elaborating ways on how to respond upon witnessing a harassment incident.

Recommended EEOC Resources

Below are other helpful resources from the EEOC for providing harassment training in organizations.