Workplace Harassment Seminars: 5 Important Elements

Workplace harassment seminars are conducted by organizations in order to educate employees on inappropriate workplace behavior. This training is intended to deter gender-based workplace harassment and maintain a friendly environment for the employees to avoid being put in tricky situations.

Why Is There a Need for Workplace Harassment Seminars?

One of the primary problems of today's company owners is sexual harassment at work. Such concerns affect large corporations and small firms, and family-owned businesses. According to research, 90 percent of Fortune 500 businesses have faced a complaint of sexual harassment at some point, and more than one-third of these companies have faced lawsuits connected to the issue. It's also true that this issue isn't unique to the wealthiest or most lucrative businesses.

Hence, comprehensive sexual harassment prevention seminars quickly became one of HR Compliance's most important obligations. The most powerful argument for sexual harassment seminars is that they may make workplaces safer for everyone.

The program enables employees to understand what sexual harassment is and how to recognize it if it occurs. This type of training serves several reasons, including educating personnel, reducing legal responsibility risk, and ensuring workplace legal compliance.

The Harassment Training Seminar Laws

Employers usually inquire about the regularity with which they must undertake training seminars. The straightforward answer is that state-by-state harassment training standards differ. As a result, legal requirements will vary based on a particular area. The SB 1343 training bill Senate Bill 1343 was recently broadened for organizations located in California.

All employees must be trained on sexual harassment by their employers. This should be undertaken every two years and during the first six months of a new employee's employment. There are further accessibility requirements for the seminar, which include the following:

• All the languages like English, Korean, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Tagalog should be available for instruction.
• In each training seminar, users should choose whether or not to employ closed captioning (digitally).
• The graphics and symbols in the seminar should include alt-text for visually impaired people.

Workplace harassment training must be a key focus for employers. It also promotes a respectful, inclusive, and tolerable workplace atmosphere. Not only do these seminars benefit workers, but they also help the company function more smoothly.

Major Benefits of Conducting Sexual Harassment Seminars

• Employees are safeguarded: The workforce will feel more empowered and at ease at work if you have a zero-tolerance culture and provide sufficient training.

• Productivity rises among employees: Employees feel more appreciated when they receive excellent training from a reputable HR Training & Advisory firm. This corresponds to a more dedicated workforce, ensuring utmost efficiency.

• Morale can be strengthened through training: As taboo as it may appear, sexual harassment should be handled head-on. Upon undergoing sexual harassment prevention seminars from a competent Human resources source, employees get more comfortable in the workplace and engage with coworkers easily. 

• The required objective is achieved: Discipline and culture are instilled in trainees through training. HR Compliance will be ensured by standardized training provided by specialist HR Services, defining and establishing permissible conduct among employees.

• Legal responsibility is avoided for businesses: Sexual harassment in the workplace is a significant legal responsibility for organizations and the business industry. By employing regular seminars and training, the legal risk to the company as a unit is reduced.

Elements of a Good Workplace Harassment Seminar

Workplace harassment significantly influences company culture, recruitment, development, and profitability. In order to avoid sexual harassment conducting seminars is a must. Here are some aspects of a successful harassment course.

• Cover the basics

As per a Gallup study conducted in 2019, 62 percent of Americans believe that workplace sexual harassment is still a significant issue. The seminars should provide a thorough explanation of what comprises of sexual harassment as well as legal terminology. It should also include sexual harassment prevention and how to address sexual harassment accusations while maintaining a professional and fair stance as an employee. 

• Inform about company policies 

The first step is to clarify policies directly and effectively make them available to all employees. The company's anti-harassment policies must be thoroughly reviewed and emphasized during the training. Details on how the company has established standards to prevent and securely report sexual harassment should be included in the training. Since firms frequently have revisions, changes in policy, and personnel changes, it is also important to perform regular training sessions.

• Divide the learnings 

There are many advantages of dividing the long sexual harassment seminars into several microlearning units. Basically, giving all of the sensitivity training in a seminar is an amateur approach, and in fact, some may not be interested in the seminar after a while. Splitting up the sexual harassment training sessions has the most significant influence on repeatability and hence reinforcement of the seminar's teachings.

• Set the seminar as per a particular company's unique workplace situation 

Although third-party sexual harassment seminars are less expensive and time-consuming than in-house training, there's a possibility that they won't automatically apply to your organization. Many pre-made sexual harassment seminars focus on the same setting, i.e., workplaces. As a result of this mismatch, employees may consider the training unrealistic, ineffective, or irrelevant to their needs.

• Keep the seminar positive

It is important for workplace harassment seminars to be positive and based on the assumption that employees choose to behave appropriately. Extreme comments on what the employees are doing wrong and how they can't trust each other or are suspected of misbehavior don't sit well with them. It drives people to foster a respectful culture by including them in the sexual harassment prevention solution. This is significantly more successful than a "stick" strategy that focuses on unwanted behavior and repercussions to be avoided in molding employee behavior.

Harassment Seminars for Superiors

Both employees and management must get workplace harassment training. The training seminars will have little to no impact if there is no communication from the leaders of the organization stating that this is really essential. 

Supervisors' sexual harassment seminars should be a significant aspect of any company's overall risk management strategy. Apart from implementing sexual harassment rules and training, corporate leaders must lead by example and demonstrate to their staff that they are on the same page.

Starting with a comprehensive sexual harassment prevention seminar is the easiest method for organizations to limit the dangers of workplace sexual harassment. Following that, actions must be taken to ensure that their supervisors have a working understanding of how to deal with improper behavior and sexual harassment complaints. Also, supervisors need to understand how to notice sexual harassment and respond appropriately with the proper training.

The Bottom Line

In order to create a great and stimulating workplace for employees, equality and diversity are increasingly important. Making every employee undergo sexual harassment training seminar is an excellent strategy to avoid sexual harassment. As a result, an employee will know what constitutes assault and what does not. HR compliance is ensured through training, educating, and empowering your personnel. Furthermore, you may create a better corporate culture where everyone understands what is expected and what is not.