The California Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”) makes specified employment practices unlawful, including the harassment of an employee directly by the employer or indirectly by agents of the employer with the employer’s knowledge.  In order to assist in preventing unlawful harassment, the FEHA requires employers with 50 or more employees to provide at least two hours of prescribed training and education regarding sexual harassment to all supervisory employees within six months of their assumption of a supervisory position and once every two years.

Effective January 1, 2018, the required training must include issues of harassment based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.  Further, the current, required poster published by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing is on its website, and the revised poster with the information regarding transgender rights will be available on its website by January 1, 2018.

If you have any questions or concerns on how this may impact your business practices or have any other questions please contact your Labor and Employment counsel at Smith, Gambrell & Russell.