2013 is a training year in California under Gov. Code §12950. 1 (AB 1825 which became law on Jan.1, 2005), and requires employers with at least 50 employees to provide two hours of classroom or other effective interactive training and education regarding sexual harassment prevention to supervisory employees. New supervisors must be trained within six months of being promoted to a supervisory position and every two years thereafter.

Persons qualified to deliver AB 1825-compliant training include:

• Attorneys;
• Professors or instructors; and
• Human resources professionals or harassment prevention consultants.

There are three training options:

• Classroom or in-person training;
• Web-based seminars or “webinars”; and
• Online computer-based training, called “e-learning.”

Employers must track the training provided to each employee. Employers can use individual tracking, training-year tracking or a combination of the two methods:

• Individual tracking tracks the last training date of each employee to ensure that retraining occurs no more than two years later; and
• Training-year tracking permits an employer to designate a training year in which it trains all or some of its supervisory employees; the employer must retrain those employees before the end of the next training year (two years later).

The DFEH can penalize employers who fail to comply with the training requirement. The law states that compliance with AB 1825 is not a defense to a sexual harassment claim and, conversely, that a supervisor’s failure to receive training is not grounds for establishing liability for harassment under the FEHA. If you have not done any training in the past two years, and are required to under California law, you must do it by December 31, 2013. Even if your company has less than fifty (50) employees or is located outside of California, it remains good policy to provide the training to supervisors.