Description
California Sexual Harassment Employee Rights Poster
Help educate employees about their rights and employer responsibilities under California sexual harassment law with the California Sexual Harassment Employee Rights Poster. This notice explains prohibited sexual harassment, employee protections, retaliation rights, complaint procedures, and important responsibilities employers have for preventing and correcting workplace harassment.
Poster Specifications
- Size: 8.5"W x 11"H
- Language: Available in English or Spanish
- Format: Full-color employee rights notice
- Finish: Completely laminated with high-quality laminate
- Topic: California sexual harassment prevention and employee rights
What Is Sexual Harassment Under California Law?
California law prohibits workplace harassment based on sex and other protected characteristics. Sexual harassment can include unwelcome sexual advances and visual, verbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature.
Sexual harassment can occur between individuals of the same or different sexes and does not have to involve sexual desire.
What Are Examples of Sexual Harassment?
Depending on the circumstances, prohibited sexual harassment can include conduct such as:
- Unwanted sexual advances
- Offering employment benefits in exchange for sexual favors
- Threatening negative employment consequences after rejecting sexual advances
- Making sexual gestures
- Displaying sexually suggestive objects, pictures, cartoons, or posters
- Making derogatory sexual comments, slurs, or jokes
- Making sexually degrading comments about an individual's body
- Using sexually degrading words to describe an individual
- Sending sexually suggestive or obscene communications
- Unwanted touching
- Assault
- Impeding or blocking an individual's movements
What Is Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment?
Quid pro quo sexual harassment can occur when an employment benefit or decision is conditioned on an employee accepting or rejecting sexual conduct.
Examples can include offering a promotion in exchange for sexual favors or threatening an employee with an adverse employment action after the employee rejects an unwanted sexual advance.
What Is a Hostile Work Environment?
A hostile work environment can occur when prohibited harassment is sufficiently severe or pervasive to create an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment under applicable California law.
Whether conduct constitutes unlawful harassment depends on the circumstances, including the nature, frequency, severity, and context of the conduct.
Who Can Commit Workplace Harassment?
Workplace harassment is not limited to conduct by supervisors or managers.
Depending on the circumstances, prohibited harassment can involve:
- Supervisors
- Managers
- Coworkers
- Customers
- Clients
- Vendors
- Contractors
- Other third parties encountered through work
Protection Against Retaliation
California law prohibits unlawful retaliation against employees for exercising protected rights involving discrimination or harassment.
Protected activities can include reporting harassment, participating in an investigation, filing a complaint, supporting another employee's complaint, or otherwise exercising rights protected by California law.
What Must California Employers Do to Prevent Harassment?
California employers have affirmative responsibilities to take reasonable steps to prevent and correct unlawful workplace harassment.
Employers must take actions that include:
- Distributing required sexual harassment information to employees
- Maintaining a written harassment, discrimination, and retaliation prevention policy
- Providing employees with an appropriate complaint process
- Responding appropriately to harassment complaints
- Conducting timely and impartial investigations when appropriate
- Taking appropriate corrective action when misconduct occurs
- Providing sexual harassment prevention training when required
California Harassment Prevention Policy
California employers must develop and distribute a written policy addressing harassment, discrimination, and retaliation.
The policy must identify protected categories, explain prohibited conduct, provide a complaint process, prohibit retaliation, and include other information required by California law.
Employers should ensure employees receive the policy and understand how to report workplace harassment or discrimination.
Sexual Harassment Prevention Training
California employers with five or more employees are generally required to provide sexual harassment prevention training to supervisory and nonsupervisory employees as required by California law.
Covered employers generally must provide:
- At least two hours of sexual harassment prevention training to supervisory employees
- At least one hour of sexual harassment prevention training to nonsupervisory employees
- Training at least once every two years and within applicable timeframes for newly hired or promoted employees
Displaying or distributing this Sexual Harassment notice does not replace applicable California harassment prevention training requirements.
Must Employers Give Sexual Harassment Information to Employees?
Yes. California employers must provide employees with required information concerning sexual harassment.
The California Civil Rights Department states that employers may distribute its Sexual Harassment poster or Sexual Harassment fact sheet to satisfy the applicable employee information requirement, or provide an alternative writing that contains the information required by California law.
Is This the Required California Workplace Discrimination Poster?
No. This Sexual Harassment Employee Rights Poster should be distinguished from California's separate mandatory California Law Prohibits Workplace Discrimination & Harassment poster.
California employers are required to conspicuously display the applicable Workplace Discrimination & Harassment poster where employees and job applicants can readily see and read it.
The Sexual Harassment notice serves an additional educational and employee-distribution purpose and does not replace the required California workplace discrimination poster.
Can Employers Distribute This Notice Electronically?
Employers should provide required sexual harassment information to employees using a method that satisfies California's distribution requirements and ensures employees receive the required information.
Employers should also maintain their required workplace posters separately from employee materials that must be individually distributed.
Language Requirements
The California Civil Rights Department provides sexual harassment information in multiple languages to help employers communicate employee rights to their workforce.
Employers should review applicable language requirements and provide employees with appropriate information they can understand.
How Can an Employee Report Sexual Harassment?
Employees should follow their employer's harassment prevention and complaint procedures when reporting suspected workplace harassment.
Employees who believe their rights have been violated may also contact the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) for information concerning workplace discrimination and harassment protections and the complaint process.
California Workplace Compliance Resources
Labor Law Compliance Center provides California employers with labor law posters, sexual harassment notices, new hire materials, employee rights notices, IWC Wage Orders, and specialty compliance products. Visit our California Labor Law Posters page or browse our California State Specialty Posters for additional California workplace compliance products.
