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Mark your calendars: On Friday, October 4th from 3:30 to 4:30, the Fresno office will be having a Wine & Cheese Get Together.
Hope to see you there!
This is the year that we will be bringing all of our offices together for our annual Christmas Luncheon. Our luncheon will be held at the Sunnyside Golf Club on Friday, December 20th from 11:30am to 2:00pm.
Menu selection to follow closer to the event.
If you would like to attend this event hosted by Insurance Associates of Fresno, contact Darlene Ayala at [email protected] .
“I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
– Michael Jordan
At the height of the #MeToo movement, California lawmakers enacted a requirement that all employers with five or more employees would need to provide sexual harassment prevention training to all employees by January 1, 2020. However, in response to outcry from the business community, Governor Newsom signed into effect a law this past Friday extending the deadline for employers to provide the newly required sexual harassment prevention training to January 1, 2021. What do California employers need to know about this one-year reprieve?
Summary Of Legislation
At the prompting of the business community, the state legislature introduced and passed SB 778 to make some needed clarifications to the new sexual harassment prevention training law. Primarily, SB 778 would delay the changes made by SB 1343 – one of the many #MeToo laws passed in the 2018 legislative session – so employers would have an additional year to get up to speed with and comply with the training requirements.
The bill contained an “urgency clause,” meaning it would go into effect immediately if signed into law. Governor Newsom heard the concerns of the business community and signed the law into effect on August 30, right before the Labor Day weekend.
What Does The New Law Mean For Employers?
With the signing of SB 778, California employers with five or more employees will now be required to provide by January 1, 2021:
· at least two hours of classroom or other “effective interactive training and education” regarding sexual harassment prevention to all supervisory employees; and
· at least one hour classroom or other “effective interactive training and education” regarding sexual harassment prevention to all nonsupervisory employees.
After this initial sexual harassment prevention training is completed, a covered employer must provide the requisite sexual harassment and prevention training to each employee in California once every two years.
SB 778 further requires that covered employers are required to provide training to nonsupervisory employees within six months of hire, and to new supervisory employees within six months of the assumption of a supervisory position.
Finally, SB 778 clarifies that a covered employer who provided the requisite sexual harassment training and prevention to an employee in 2019 is not required to provide refresher training and education again for such employee until two years thereafter.
The Time To Prepare Is Now
While you might be breathing a sigh of relief knowing that the next few months will not be a mad scramble for compliance, you should not let your guard down. For most California employers, complying with the requirements of the new law by the beginning of 2021 will still be a large undertaking and will require advance preparation and work. This is particularly true for employers who do not currently provide sexual harassment prevention training for their non-supervisory employees, or did not previously provide training to supervisors because they fall under the 50-employee threshold.
As Hurricane Dorian makes landfall in the United States, click here to check out what its damage in the Bahamas means for the industry.
“Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”
-Brene Brown
From Norma Jean Perez in our SLO Office:
“Hello D&D Family – I would like to organize a drop off at Cal Poly Career Center. Cal Poly is always looking for high-quality work clothes to assist students (male & female) create memorable first impression.
If you have any professional work attire you no longer use and would like to donate to Cal Poly let me know and I’ll take them over with my collection of Men’s Suit/Jackets which I have collected from Dave. If you let me know by this Friday I will wait until next week to make the drop off. Thanks for your support. NJ”
Click here to learn more about the Cal Poly Career Services Clothing Closet.
The training will be coordinated by our Loss Control Department through the Risk Management System. Please look for email from Hortensia regarding the training details. All training will need to be completed by September 30th.
Please call Hortensia with any questions.