E-learning: An Effective Weapon to Prevent Sexual Harassment at the Workplace

Are you running a business in California? Do you have more than 50 employees? Then you are subject to the AB 1825 act of California, which requires you to provide training on sexual harassment prevention to your employees. The  AB 1825 act makes it mandatory for all organizations in the state of California with 50 or more employees to provide 2 hours of training on sexual harassment to their employees every two years. On August 17, 2007 this act became effective, and organizations which violate the act face serious consequences.

Training requirements:

1. Once every two years, an organization must provide 2 hours of training on sexual harassment, as per the specifications given in section 7288.0, subdivision (c).
2. The sexual harassment training given to employees must be documented to keep track of the organization’s compliance of the act.
3. Training should be provided to all supervisory personnel within 6 months of their joining and thereafter for every two years.
4. While the training should be of 2 hours duration, it need not be completed in one attempt. And, the duration for classroom training and webinars should not be less than an hour.

E-learning is an effective method to provide this training. Let’s see how.

1. For every six months and two years this training should be taken by supervisors. If the training is imparted in a classroom, it takes a lot of time, money and trainer effort. But, if it is delivered through eLearning, companies can save about 50% to 70% on training costs. This is because when the instructor-led training sessions are replaced with eLearning courses, expenditure incurred on logistics and travel is reduced considerably and the presence of a trainer is not required (IOMA 2002).
2. For documenting the training, companies need to furnish information such as the name of trained employee, date of training, type of training and name of the training provider. This information must be stored for a minimum of two years. An eLearning course can be hosted on a learning management system (LMS) to track their performance and maintain the needed records.
3. E-learning is the best option as it is a one-time investment, and online courses can be used as many times as we want for any number of employees. E-Learning courses are more convenient to employees, when compared to the traditional classroom training sessions.
4. In eLearning courses, we can include the bookmarking feature that will help supervisors to resume the course whenever they are ready, from the point where they have paused.

Hope you find this blog useful. In my next blog, I will share with you the strategies that can be applied to make sexual harassment prevention training programs effective. Stay tuned.