Organizational Wellness

What HR Needs to Know About Sexual Harassment Training

Last Updated Nov 15, 2024

Time to read: 11 minutes

Sexual harassment in the workplace is a serious issue that negatively affects emotional wellbeing of employees and the overall culture of an organization. While the behaviors range from inappropriate jokes to unwelcome advances, the impact is the same: it creates a hostile, unsafe work environment.

This discomfort is all too common. More than half of all American employees have reported experiencing some type of sexual harassment at work. That includes 38% of women and 14% of men who have experienced workplace harassment.

So, how can organizations combat this? One of the most powerful steps is implementing comprehensive sexual harassment training, which is why most companies are required to provide this to their employees.

But what exactly is sexual harassment, and how does training help prevent it? Let’s break down everything you need to know about creating a safe and respectful workplace.

What Is Sexual Harassment in the Workplace?

Sexual harassment in the workplace is any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature that creates a hostile or intimidating work environment, according to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). It includes a range of behaviors, from inappropriate jokes and comments to physical advances or requests for sexual favors. These actions can come from colleagues, managers, or even clients, and they can significantly impact an employee's emotional wellbeing, job performance, and sense of safety at work.

Sexual harassment is not measured by the intent of the action but by its impact. Victims of sexual harassment are the ones who decide that an action is unwelcome.

Despite the fact that sexual harassment is so prevalent, it’s drastically underreported. In fact, over 85% of victims never file an official complaint, and most never mention the incident to their managers or HR departments — men and women alike...

Part of why it’s so underreported is due to consequences to victims. Unfortunately, over half of the time, the victim experienced retaliation for the report, including demotions.

What Is Sexual Harassment Training?

Sexual harassment training is where all members of a company are educated on the topic, either in-person or async through a video curriculum. Typically, these types of general training seminars include:

Definitions of what sexual harassment is and what behaviors it includes
What qualifies as acceptable behavior at work
What isn’t allowed to be done or said at your company
How to report harassment within your company
Explanation of what happens to the victim after reporting

These sessions help your team members understand what’s acceptable behavior in the workplace. On top of that, outlining the reporting phase can help victims understand what will happen and potentially boost reporting. After all, one of the main reasons someone won’t report is because they worry the perpetrator will receive no consequences.

Organizations will have more in-depth training for managers. In these, leaders learn how to handle reports properly to keep everyone safe and encourage higher levels of reporting.

Sexual harassment training is a proactive way for your company to prevent harassment while staying compliant with workplace regulations. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers with 15 or more employees are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, or national origin. This includes preventing all forms of harassment, including sexual harassment, which is illegal under federal law.

In addition to federal guidelines, several states have introduced their own specific laws to further prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. These laws often require employers to provide specialized training. For example:

California - AB 1825, AB 2053, SB 396, SB 1300, SB 1343
Connecticut - Connecticut Human Rights and Opportunity Act, Time's Up Act
Delaware - HB 360
Illinois - SB 0075 Illinois Human Rights Act, Work Transparency Act
Maine - Maine Employment Laws Revised Statute, Title 26, Section 807
New York - New York Human Rights Law § 296.1, New York City Stop Sexual Harassment Act

Often, when a state has a more specific law, there’s often an official sexual harassment prevention course your company could use. For example, the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) offers a two-hour course, often called CHRO sexual harassment training. Utilizing state-sanctioned training helps ensure your company is compliant.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) oversees the enforcement of these regulations, requiring companies with 15 or more employees to actively prevent harassment. Implementing sexual harassment training is one of the most effective ways to meet these compliance requirements while fostering a safe and respectful work environment.

Key Elements of Effective Sexual Harassment Training

The key elements of effective sexual harassment training ensure that the program not only meets legal requirements but also fosters a respectful, safe workplace where employees feel empowered to address and prevent harassment. Here’s what makes sexual harassment training truly effective:

Include bystander training. Often, your employees will witness some kind of sexual harassment happening, even if they’re not the victim. Preparing your people to react well when they’re seeing a problem can make training feel more applicable to them — and keep everyone safer.
Interactive training. Engaging training sessions are key. The most effective sexual harassment training includes interactive elements, often spanning four hours, according to research conducted at the University of New Hampshire. To do this, you might have discussions where everyone can participate or break into smaller groups. For your remote team members, consider creating digital breakout rooms for everyone to have a chance to speak.
Customized material for different roles and organizational contexts. Everyone needs to learn what sexual harassment is and how to report an incident. Managers, on the other hand, also need to know how to handle those reports. On top of that, your company might have some unique situations or needs to address further — you might have special training for customer-facing roles, for example. Consider tailoring your training courses to fully accommodate these situations.

Designing and Delivering Sexual Harassment Training

If you’re creating your company’s new sexual harassment training or launching a new program, consider these best practices for the process:

Conduct a Needs Assessment

Your team is unique and may have particular needs or questions. Try sending out an anonymous survey or consider going through past reports to find common themes to cover. This can help you determine exactly what your workers want to learn and where they might need clarification.

Develop Training Content and Materials

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel! Start with existing materials that have been working well for other companies. From there, tweak any areas to match your company’s needs, based on the assessments. You also might consider a wide variety of content. This could include videos or creating thought-provoking questions for small group discussions.

Selecting Appropriate Training Methods

You can decide if you want to have your training in-person or online — or even in a hybrid form. There are advantages and disadvantages of each approach. If you choose to hold training in person, it’s often easier to hold a discussion and hear from more team members, but attending can create stress for some team members if the scheduled time conflicts with their workload. Holding it online instead makes it easy for all your remote employees to join, but it can be more difficult to encourage participation and engagement. To choose the right fit for you, try matching your workplace setup.

Incorporate Case Studies and Real-Life Examples

Showing the impact of sexual harassment in the real world can help people understand the seriousness of the topic. Consider taking some time to research case studies and real-life examples. You don’t necessarily need to choose examples from your workplace, but other organizations’ case studies can bring your training to life.

Engaging Employees in Sexual Harassment Training

It’s important to keep people attentive during sexual harassment training and it’s critical to fostering a safe and respectful workplace. These strategies can help keep your employees engaged in these sessions:

Promote employee participation. Structure your training in a way that promotes your people’s active involvement. You might hold workshops or ask questions. You could show videos or hold Q&A sessions.
Encourage open dialogue and questions. This type of training can be intimidating or vulnerable for your employees. During training, try to remember that and allow people to ask anything. It might be a great starting point for more discussion and can keep people involved in the conversation.
Addressing common concerns and misconceptions. There are a lot of misunderstands about sexual harassment at work. Taking some time to bust common myths can help everyone better understand the topic. For example, you could explain how men and non-binary individuals can also be victims. Or that harassment can be entirely verbal. This can be a chance to answer questions from the survey that your team might be too worried to ask.

Reinforcing and Sustaining Training Effectiveness

Completing your formal training is a great first step, but the learning doesn’t stop there. Reinforcing the teachings over time helps your team get even more out of your training. Here are some top tips to keep the momentum going and make the training truly impactful.

Follow-up tasks. Build in some follow-up check-ins that will reinforce what you went over. Maybe that’s an occasional prompt to think about something in a newsletter, or maybe it’s an actual activity with a discussion a month later.
Periodic refresher courses and updates. Regular training sessions help reinforce key policies and keep everyone informed. Even if policies haven’t changed, these sessions refresh employees' knowledge and ensure that critical information stays top of mind. They also provide a valuable opportunity to introduce any updates or improvements, ensuring the entire team remains aligned with best practices.
Monitor and evaluate training outcomes. You might send out another survey to see what people understand about sexual harassment. This can help you evaluate training outcomes and determine if your policies are working.

Measuring the Impact of Sexual Harassment Training

Determining if your sexual harassment training is actually reducing problems in your workplace can be difficult. These are some ways you could monitor the effects of training to determine next steps:

Identify key performance indicators (KPIs). Key performance indicators are any metrics you can measure numerically. Consider implementing at least one to measure the success of your training. A reduced number of reports isn’t usually the best number to track. Fewer reports don’t mean sexual harassment is decreasing, it could just mean victims are scared to report. Try to choose KPIs, such as how many employees have completed the full training program.
Collect and analyze feedback and data. Consider sending out surveys to get a better understanding of what worked. This data can help you figure out what changes to make in the future, all based on the feedback from your people.
Assess changes in behavior and organizational culture. Keep an eye on how people are interacting with each other and if there are any culture shifts. You can get this information from feedback and data, and it can show you if people are internalizing what they learned.

Best Practices to Prevent and Eliminate Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment training is only one way to actively work to eliminate any harassment. These are some other ways to help get rid of sexual harassment within the workplace:

Establish a clear policy. Develop a comprehensive sexual harassment policy that defines what constitutes sexual harassment and outlines reporting procedures. Spending time creating a dynamic policy is worth the time because clear procedures can act as a deterrent to sexual harassment. After you establish a policy, clearly explain it to all of your team members in training.
Foster a respectful culture. Cultural changes are the most effective way to reduce sexual harassment. Some things you can do to create this type of environment involves crafting diversity initiatives and having leadership model respect. You can also run always-on awareness campaigns about what qualifies as harassment and how to report that can help people learn more.
Encourage open communication. Create safe and confidential channels for reporting incidents, and try to make the process simple. Remember that a lack of reports doesn’t mean sexual harassment isn’t happening. To really encourage better communication, consider assuring employees that they’ll be protected from retaliation if they report.

How to Support Your Workforce Every Day

Sexual harassment is a real problem in the workplace. Countering it with thorough and thoughtful training is a very powerful way you can help your organization become a safe and respectful place to work.

But training is just the beginning. To truly create an environment where employees feel valued and cared for, wellness programs are a key addition. These initiatives show your team that their wellbeing is a priority, which fosters a sense of holistic support.

In turn, this can help you boost retention. Companies that invest in wellness create a place people don’t want to leave. In fact, 98% of HR leaders say their wellbeing program reduces turnover, according to Wellhub research.

Ready to get started utilizing wellness to create a great place to work? Talk to a Wellhub Wellbeing Specialist today to get started!

Company healthcare costs drop by up to 35% with Wellhub! (* Based on proprietary research comparing healthcare costs of active Wellhub users to non-users.) Talk to a Wellbeing Specialist to see how we can help reduce your healthcare spending!