New York employers must provide sexual harassment training to all employees each year. Whether you are located in a state that legally requires that you train your team in sexual harassment or if you make the decision to provide it for your team in order to mitigate risk and develop a culture that encourages psychological safety, the requirements set forth by New York provide meaningful guidelines that can help you determine if your training is compliant.
Finding the best provider to help you stay compliant while decreasing the costs that come with tracking and managing your anti-harassment program is an important step. You must know who can train your team sexual harassment while ensuring that you are reaching 100% of your team with an accessible sexual harassment training solution.
✔️ indicates that Opus sexual harassment prevention meets requirements.
New York City Requirements
An employer that does not use the model training developed by the Department of Labor and Division of Human Rights must ensure that the training that they use meets or exceeds the following minimum standards. Sexual harassment prevention training for employees working in New York City must meet these specifications in order to be compliant with NYC law.
✔️ An explanation of sexual harassment as a form of unlawful discrimination under New York City Human Rights Law.
✔️ A statement that sexual harassment is also a form of unlawful discrimination under state and federal law.
✔ A description of what sexual harassment is, along with examples of conduct that constitutes unlawful sexual harassment.
✔ Information about bystander intervention, and provide any resources that explain how to engage in bystander intervention.
✔️ Explains what retaliation is, why it is prohibited under the law and examples of activities that are protected against retaliation.
✔️ The responsibilities of supervisors and managers to prevent sexual harassment and retaliation and steps they may take to address employees’ sexual harassment complaints.
✔️ Information about your internal complaint process is available to employees to address sexual harassment complaints.
✔️ The complaint processes available through the NYC Commission on Human Rights, the New York State Division of Human Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, including contact information.
✔️ An acknowledgement that confirms each employee completed their training, which employers must keep for three years.
New York State Requirements
✔️ Training may be in-person or online, as long as it is “interactive”
✔️ Include an explanation of sexual harassment consistent with guidance issued by the Department of Labor in consultation with the Division of Human Rights.
✔️ Include examples of unlawful sexual harassment
✔️ Include information concerning the federal and state statutory provisions concerning sexual harassment and remedies available to victims of sexual harassment.
✔️ Include information concerning employees’ rights of redress and all available forums for adjudicating complaints
✔️ Include information addressing conduct by supervisors and additional responsibilities for supervisors.
What is the definition of "interactive training" by New York standards?
Interactivity requires employee participation. According to NY State’s guidance, an individual watching a training video or reading a document only, with no feedback mechanism or interaction, is not considered interactive. If the training is web-based these are the definitions of interactivity:
• The employee must select the right answer when asked questions at the end
• The employee must have an option to submit a question and receive an answer in a timely manner.
• The training that provides a feedback for employees to complete after the training is complete
Why choose Opus for Sexual Harassment prevention?
Mobile-first training
Opus uses chat-based training to ensure that your team isn't facing the tech barriers that come with email logins and password. Using cell phones to learn ensures that your team is getting access to training and not competing for the only open computer or tablet available.
Accommodates short attention spans
With a shrinking global attention span, your training needs to keep up with the times. Micro-training delivered in small chunks is digestible and ensures that your team stays alert while learning and retaining more.
Multi-lingual, always
Your workforce is multilingual? Then your training should be also. When 25 to 30% of "deskless" employees in the U.S. don't speak English as their primary language. Traditional LMS charges you for translations. We include it. We include our automated translation technology in all Opus plans.
Industry-relevant scenarios
We take careful steps to ensure that the scenarios your team encounters in our sexual harassment prevention training are meaningful and relevant. A restaurant worker shouldn't be training on scenarios for a different industry. The focus is always on you, your team, and the realistic scenarios.
Includes interactive questions asked by employees
To keep sexual harassment prevention training relevant and interesting, we've included questions that are frequently asked by employees. Develop a training culture that invites curiosity and questions.
Credible content partners
Our sexual harassment prevention courses are designed by the education experts at Opus Training in partnership with Gunderson Dettmer LLP, one of the top employment law firms in the country.
