In 2018, New York State implemented its first Sexual Harassment Prevention Model Policy requiring all employers to adopt a sexual harassment prevention policy and provide annual training. This legislation also requires that the model policy provided by the State be reviewed and revised every four years. Last week, Governor Hochul alongside the NYS Department of Labor and the NYS Division of Human Rights announced the updated Sexual Harassment Prevention policy guidelines and training requirements “which addresses remote workers, gender discrimination, retaliation, and other new guidance for workers in New York State.”

The New York State resource page includes updated toolkits for workers and employers, FAQs, training slide deck and script to ensure full compliance.

This training is required annually. PERMA recommends if you have already conducted your sexual harrassment prevention training to conduct a follow up highlighting changes in the new policy and provide the updated policy to all employees. If you have not completed the training this year, be sure to use the new resources outlined by the State and provide employees with the new policy during the future training.

For questions regarding this change, please contact PERMA Risk Management Consultant, Ursula Svoboda at usvoboda@perma.org.