California to Expand Harassment Prevention Training: Employment Law Manual, Other Documents Updated

Authors: Marta Moakley and Beth Zoller, XpertHR Legal Editors

Effective January 1, 2015, California employers must include a component addressing abusive conduct as part of the state-required supervisor training on sexual harassment prevention. The law defines abusive conduct as any malicious conduct that a reasonable person would find hostile, offensive and unrelated to an employer's legitimate business interests. Examples of abusive workplace conduct include:

  • Repeated infliction of verbal abuse, such as the use of derogatory remarks, insults and epithets;
  • Threatening, intimidating or humiliating verbal or physical conduct; or
  • The gratuitous sabotage or undermining of a person's work performance.

As a result of this development, the EEO - Harassment: California and Training and Development: California sections of the Employment Law Manual have been updated. In addition, the State Sexual Harassment Training Requirements - Chart now contains information regarding the new training requirements.

Finally, an entry in the Legal Timetable has been created for this development.