<div dir="ltr"><div style="" id="stcpDiv"><h1>New California Harassment Policy Requirements, Effective April 1</h1>
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<div class=""> <span class="">Friday, March 18, 2016</span> </div> </div>
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</div><p class="">Amended FEHA regulations cover a wide range
of compliance topics and may require California employers to update
their harassment and discrimination policies.</p><p class="">On
April 1, new antidiscrimination amendments affecting employers take
effect in California. The regulations, adopted by the Fair Employment
and Housing Council, provide several policies to which employers must
adhere to meet their “affirmative duty to take reasonable steps to
prevent and promptly correct discriminatory and harassing conduct” in
the workplace. The regulations specify the information that employers
must include in their harassment policies, the methods by which
employers must disseminate their policies, and, potentially, the
languages in which employers must provide their harassment policies.</p><h3 class=""><strong>Harassment Policy Changes</strong></h3><p class="">The
regulations require employers to distribute the Department of Fair
Employment and Housing’s DFEH-185 Brochure on Sexual Harassment and
develop a harassment, discrimination, and retaliation prevention policy.</p><h4 class=""><strong>Dissemination</strong></h4><p class="">The
regulations require employers to disseminate the updated harassment
policy to their employees. Compliant dissemination methods include one
or more of the following:</p><ul><li>
<p class="">Providing a hardcopy or an email copy to all employees with an acknowledgment form for employees to sign and return</p>
</li><li>
<p class="">Posting current versions of the policies on a
company intranet with a tracking system ensuring that all employees have
read and acknowledged receipt of the policies</p>
</li><li>
<p class="">Discussing the policies upon hire and/or during a new hire orientation session</p>
</li><li>
<p class="">Any other way that ensures employees receive and understand the policies</p>
</li></ul><h4 class=""><strong>Translation Requirement</strong></h4><p class="">The
regulations also require that any employer whose workforce at any
facility or establishment contains 10% or more of persons who speak a
language other than English as their spoken language must shall
translate the policy into every language that is spoken by at least 10%
of the workforce.</p><h4 class=""><strong>Training Requirement</strong></h4><p class="">As
a reminder, California employers of 50 or more persons must also ensure
that supervisors receive legally compliant training. The new
regulations also provide additional detail on the requirements of such
trainings, including recordkeeping requirements.</p><h3 class=""><strong>Compliance Checklist</strong></h3></div><div class=""><ul class=""><li><img src="http://www.natlawreview.com/sites/all/themes/nationallaw/img/left_light.png"></li><li class="">Page</li></ul><ul class="" id="jkit-paginate-pagination-wrapper"><li class="">1</li><li>2</li></ul><ul class=""><li><img src="http://www.natlawreview.com/sites/all/themes/nationallaw/img/right_dark.png"></li></ul></div>
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<a href="http://www.natlawreview.com/article/new-california-harassment-policy-requirements-effective-april-1#sthash.wSv7xT7z.dpuf">http://www.natlawreview.com/article/new-california-harassment-policy-requirements-effective-april-1#sthash.wSv7xT7z.dpuf</a></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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