dfeh sexual harassment training: Why using the California state (DFEH) sexual harassment prevention training (SHPT) for your workers can cost your business big bucks. Why the DFEH SHPT should be avoided at all cost.
Why sexual harassment prevention training (SHPT) offered by the State of California can actually hurt your business.
Here’s why choosing the online training linked directly from the state’s web site can cost your business big bucks.
Let the buyer beware: you get what you pay for.
You’d think that, since California offers sexual harassment prevention training per the 2019 law, it would comply with that law?
So that employers who use the State’s own training could be sure to meet the law’s requirements??
Sorry, that’s not the case here.
The State’s online sexual harassment prevention training course is NOT COMPLIANT.
Shocking as that is, the web clearly shows that the State’s course does not comply with the requirements:
2019 law SB-1343 §12950.1.(a) states that compliant sexual harassment prevention training must be “effective interactive training and education“.
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) is tasked with administering the law and defines this term. In its published FAQs (link downloads a PDF), the DFEH states “effective interactive” online training is:
” E-learning that is individualized, interactive, computer-based training …”
And of course, “individualized” simply means that a course identifies each student individually. Once identified, a training course can offer students interactive features different from other students going through the same training.
One example of individualization is a quiz that presents questions drawn from a larger group on the same topic. This group of questions is often called a test bank. The quiz selects questions randomly each time, so that each student can have a different draw.
In contrast, training solutions that don’t distinguish between students can’t demonstrate that their approach is individualized.
Similarly, these offerings can’t capture data to show which questions were presented to a student or how they answered.
When evaluating a training course for individualization, one simple check is immediate. A big red flag waves if the course doesn’t have its students create a profile and log in.
The State’s online course does not allow students to create a profile or log in.
As a result, the online training offered by the DFEH itself does not even meet their own published standard. This is so astonishing that we simply must repeat it:
The free sexual harassment prevention training offered by California is NOT compliant with their own published training standard.
dfeh sexual harassment training
Why the DFEH sexual harassment training is bad for your employees and can cost your business big bucks
SHPT from the DFEH is bad and should be avoided.
Learning that the State’s course is not compliant is usually enough to send most employers looking for a different solution. And yet there are still more problems with the State’s training course to talk about.
Not having trainees log in leads to further obstacles. Because without logins, the employer loses visibility to what their employees are doing:
The State’s online course does not allow tracking of students through the course.
You can’t track your employees through most free sexual harassment prevention training courses, which seem to require an ‘honor system’.
And if you can’t track your trainees, you have no way of validating anything your employees tell you. For example, where they are in the training:
♦ “I started, but couldn’t finish before the end of my shift.”
♦ “I finished. I’m all done.”
♦ “It said I’m not due for training yet.”
Consider that if even one employee has not completed their California SHPT on time, the entire company is non-compliant.
This makes visibility to where each worker is within their sexual harassment prevention training class very important.
But courses that don’t require logins can’t show you if your worker has even started the training or not.
Worse is if a student in the State’s course needs to leave, or if the browser window closes early. The trainee must restart the course from the beginning.
The California Supervisor’s course is two hours long.
As the employer pays for the training time, this is inefficient and expensive.
Compare the cost of training with each employee’s hourly wage, and paid training starts to look much more economical.
Certificates are a problem for the State DFEH’s training, too.
The State’s course requires that students screen capture their proof of training within the browser window at the end.
If they close too soon or walk away, it’s gone.
Imagine an audit or legal proceeding. In these cases, when a company pulls out the training file months later, they want solid proof of compliance. Employers need those certificates. This includes being able to replace an earned certificate that goes missing from the file.
At California Required Training Solutions, we grant individually numbered certificates of completion that can be validated 24/7/365 using our certificate number lookup tool. So you know our certificates are legitimate.
In addition, both the student and the employer can log back into our training portal and download copies of the PDF certificate(s), for as long as we are allowed to maintain that data. So a missing certificate is no cause for panic.
Being able to prove the name of the trainee, course completed, as well as the date of course completion, tying back to a published detailed course curriculum and having validation by a third party is high quality assurance of your company’s training compliance at a low cost.
The SB-1343 law is written so that full responsibility for providing and documenting sexual harassment prevention training falls on the employer, not the State.
In the case of a complaint or lawsuit, a company’s reputation and bankroll are on the line. In that situation, business owners want real help proving that they took all the right preventative steps, not a “hit and hope” solution. Business owners want a solution with “skin in the game,” who can provide lesson-level confirmation that a given worker affirmed specific concept(s) within the training by date and time.
At California Required Training Solutions, we collect detailed data that is very useful if ever needed in a proceeding, and reassuring backup at a potentially stressful time.
dfeh sexual harassment prevention training (SHPT)
Why the DFEH sexual harassment prevention training is bad for your employees and can cost your business big bucks
SHPT from the DFEH is not compliant and should be avoided.
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