As you are likely aware, New York State and New York City have passed legislation mandating annual sexual harassment training for all employees. At Brand’s Paycheck, we know how complex these laws can get and we understand that as a busy employer, your time is valuable. Fortunately, NYS and NYC has made it easy to comply with the laws, providing all the materials you need to handle policy implementation and training on your own.

NEW YORK STATE REQUIREMENTS

The law applies to employers of all size businesses.

There are 3 key requirements:

1. All employers must adopt a harassment policy and share it with their employees. Click here to download the NYS pre-prepared policy. If you’d like to create your own, simply follow the NYS guidelines detailed here.
2. Next, the law mandates that employers must provide their employees with a complaint form. Download the NYS Model Complaint Form and provide them to all employees.
3. Finally, it mandates employers to provide interactive (video or in-person) harassment training for all their employees on an annual basis. For more information and for the NYS model training slide deck, click here.

Other Notes:

• In New York State, employers are not required to have any signed document from their employees. However, employers are encouraged to keep careful record of what they did to comply with this law in the case of a lawsuit or complaint.
• The training is only required for employees working in NYS and not for employees working outside NYS.
• All employees and managers must be kept in the loop to ensure that there is a system in place for compliance. A non-compliance of a manager would make the manager’s employer liable if he or she failed to create a system where complaints can be reported and addressed.

NEW YORK CITY ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

Unlike the New York State requirements which apply to employers of all size businesses, the New York City law only applies to employers of 15 employees or more. However, in New York City, employers must comply with the following additional requirements:

1. Anti-sexual harassment posters in English and in Spanish must be posted in a conspicuous place in the workplace.
2. An anti-sexual harassment fact sheet must be given to new employees at time of hire.
3. Unlike NYS, NYC employers are required to keep a clear record of the annual training and a signed certification from employees confirming that they have received the training.

What should I do next?

Option 1: Do It Yourself Training

The simplest and most cost-effective way to address this would be to implement the training system provided by NYC, as that incorporates all the NYS requirements as well. It also has the certifications which you will need to get from the employees that they received training. To access the NYC training material click here.

Option 2: Sign Up for An Employee Training Service

If your company wishes to have an online system to manage the status of all employee training, please reach out to us here to sign up for an employee training service. There is a one-time setup fee of $399, followed by the yearly cost of the service: $15 per user per year (in this case each employee will become a user). Here’s what the service does:

1. Provides a database of all your employees and sends them reminders via email and text to take the training each year.
2. Provides a list of questions for employees to complete after training. Each employee must score 70% or higher.
3. Directs employees to a designated person within your company to answer any additional questions.
4. Provides each employee with the fact sheet and harassment policy of your company, as well as a signature page and certificate of training once training is completed. Each certificate is retained.

To sign up for this service simply reach out to us by clicking here.

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