Providing sexual harassment training to your employees is one of the most important steps that you as an employer can take to prevent lawsuits and limit your exposure in lawsuits that are filed. In the March 2003 issue of Connecticut Employment Law Letter, we described in detail the sexual harassment training requirements under Connecticut law (see "Sexual harassment training Q&A: What are my responsibilities?"). Under the law, certain employers are required to provide sexual harassment training to supervisory employees. Employers with more than 50 employees must provide two hours of sexual harassment training and education to all supervisory employees within six months of beginning a supervisory position.

Fail to train at your own risk

Frequently, employers don't provide sexual harassment training and education for a variety of reasons. But failing to provide the education and training is foolish and may lead to legal troubles in the future. Too often during investigations before the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO), managers can't recall if and/or when their employer provided sexual harassment training and education. Such an admission immediately shifts the focus from the merits of the employee's allegations to the reasons training and education weren't provided.

Failure to provide training can be a clear violation of the law. A more troubling aspect of such a failure, however, is that the lack of training and education shifts the CHRO investigator's attention from the truthfulness of the employee's allegations to the employer's failure to comply with the law. That often leads to trouble for the employer and results in unfavorable findings from the investigator.

The purpose of the training and education is to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace. It's the responsibility of every supervisory employee and employer to create a workplace free of sexual harassment. The training and education are an integral part of that obligation. An organized and quality training and education program delivered by a reputable and effective trainer sends the clear message to your managers that sexual harassment won't be tolerated, and that it's part of your managers' duty to ensure that the workplace is free of harassment.

Furthermore, if you have your high-level managers and executives attend the training, the message is clear that you're committed to the program and are seriously committed to eradicating sexual harassment. The wrong message can be sent by a half-hearted attempt to provide training and education or the complete lack of training at all.

What to include in training and education

It's important for you to include several items in your training and education. First, attendance should be mandatory, and you should have attendees sign in or record their attendance in another way. You should maintain the attendance records so you can verify that your supervisory employees have received the training.

Second, you should incorporate some sort of testing during or at the conclusion of the training to confirm that your managers have absorbed the material and can recognize sexual harassment. The testing should also ensure that your employees are able to respond to those problems in an effective manner. That can also help you discover and understand issues regarding your own internal policies and procedures so that you can address these issues and make your policies and procedures more effective.

Third, you should invest the time and resources to acquire effective training materials to be delivered by effective personnel. If you need to purchase items or retain consultants to properly provide the training, you should do so.

Finally, the training should include an informative discussion on handling employees' complaints and your company's response to complaints. It's imperative that your managers understand the ins and outs of your sexual harassment policy and understand how to deal with complaints to avoid the appearance of retaliation in response to a complaint.

Bottom line

If you provide effective training and education to your employees, you not only comply with the law but also protect yourself against legal troubles in the future. Providing training also demonstrates your good faith in attempting to eliminate sexual harassment. Today, sexual harassment training is necessary and prudent to protect employers from legal problems.

Reprinted with permission of publisher. First appeared in Connecticut Employment Law Letter (March 2004). For subscription information, call (800)274-6774.