Beginning early April 2016 there are new anti-discrimination laws in California. The Fair Employment Housing Act states that there shall be no harassment in the workplace based on race, gender, and other protected classes.
The new provisions consist of the following:
- Businesses will be required to have a policy that combats discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Businesses are only required to do so if they have five or more employees.
- Companies are required to disperse the policy to all employees
- 2 hours of mandatory training for supervisors on the prevention of sexual harassment every 2 years
- Very detailed definitions of the following: gender expression, gender identity, sex stereotype and transgender
- The extension of national-origin protections to undocumented immigrants who hold special “AB 60” driver’s licenses
What does this mean for your business?
Stay up to date with the changing laws! When implementing your new policy, be sure you give employees options for reporting harassment complaints. Employees may not feel comfortable with reporting discrimination issues directly to their supervisor so gave them another outlet to resolve the issue prior to reporting directly to an agency at the federal level. Also, when getting the word out about your policy, you must make sure that the policy is read and understood by all employees.
