California Sexual Harassment Training and Prevention

ABUSIVE CONDUCT STANDARD

In 2015, California amended its anti-discrimination law to require all California employers subject to the mandatory California sexual harassment training requirement to include a component preventing “abusive conduct.” Notably, the “abusive conduct” (bullying and harassment in the workplace) amendment did not create a new protected category or make abusive conduct illegal; instead, it amended only the training requirement to add a component to mandatory training conducted for compliance with California harassment training requirements.

Under the 2015 change to the California anti-discrimination law, “abusive conduct” is defined as “conduct of an employer or employee in the workplace, with malice, that a reasonable person would find hostile, offensive, and unrelated to an employer’s legitimate business interests.” California’s definition of abusive conduct amounts to bullying and harassment. Still, the state gives examples that abusive conduct may include “repeated infliction of verbal abuse, such as the use of derogatory remarks, insults, and epithets, verbal or physical conduct that a reasonable person would find threatening, intimidating, or humiliating, or the gratuitous sabotage or undermining of a person’s work performance.”

Why Syntrio’s Compliance Training Is Your Best Source for Workplace Harassment Training Laws, Sexual Harassment Training, and Prevention in California

Syntrio has been the leader in workplace harassment training in California for over 20 years.

Since its inception in the anti-discrimination and workplace harassment training market over 20 years ago, Syntrio has been aware that it needs to be different to help employers not only comply with sexual harassment in the workplace laws in California but also to help employers empower their workforce to speak up and make an actual difference in workplace culture. The first harassment training laws were enacted in the early 1990s when Syntrio began developing content intended to assist employers in educating their workforces on employment law, workplace harassment, and employment discrimination (including in California). Following California’s harassment training mandate in the mid-2000s, there was an explosion of activity in this area as organizations scrambled to find “check the box” compliance training (mainly to bolster defense in the event litigation commenced) or no training at all.

The Syntrio approach to California Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace Training is Different.

While the drive to provide workplace harassment training has not changed, expert views on the type and focus of training have. Many of our competitors continue to provide “check the box” California sexual harassment training that was primarily provided before the #MeToo era and aimed at combating the harmful effects of an incident of harassment in the workplace. This workplace harassment training focused on illegal sexual harassment and how companies could avoid liability rather than actual incident prevention and improve workplace culture. Syntrio knows legalistic, compliance-focused training does not resonate with employees and has researched what works.

The solutions that help to improve workplace culture and help reduce the number of incidents of workplace harassment involve a full-scale program of civility and respect training. It is essential to provide training that complies with California sexual harassment law. Still, it is also necessary to let your workforce know that you care about their well-being. Therefore, a speak up and listen up a program aimed at empowering your workforce to report incidents is a critical aspect of any California sexual harassment training program. Additionally, employers must provide training that teaches employees to respect one another and demonstrates the organization’s respect for its workforce. In addition to understanding what illegal sexual harassment is, employees must understand one another’s sensitivities and the organization’s understanding that everyone has individual needs.

Syntrio Continues to Innovate

As the 2010s closed, significant legislation and legislative recommendation left nearly half of the United States under a mandate or official guidance that some or all employees receive sexual harassment training. Although this increase was expected to continue, the pandemic slowed legislative development in this area. Nevertheless, Syntrio continued forging a new method of helping employers comply with California sexual harassment training requirements and uses its depth of knowledge and expertise in the area to set itself apart from the competition by providing depth and breadth of employment law training that is cohesive as a component of an overall training strategy aimed at cultural improvement for the benefit of the employee.