Doess your employer require "Harassment Training"?
No – it’s not a session on how to be a nasty person = just the opposite. It’s a web-based course that is supposed employees behave better in terms of sexual harassment, racial and religious diversity, sensitivity, and disabilities.
My employer sprung this on us last week – 99.9% of it is just plain common sense and courtesy, so it’s not like I have to change anything.
On the other hand, the training seems to be a lot of “groupthink” and behavior modification based on platitudes, but not backed up by facts.
Does your employer make all employees go to Harassment Training? In person or web-based? Does it make a difference?
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15 Answers
When I worked at a community college we had to take online courses like that.
Yes. All four colleges I work at (1FT, 3PT) require annual Title IX, Substance Abuse, Mental Health, Technology Awareness, and other trainings. All online now, but it’s per college. So, that is often 12–18 training per year. Each lasting 30 minutes to 2 hours each.
A monster pain in the tuchas.
You can’t skip ahead, but I’ll usually have them on while watching TV and then just answer the questions.
I worked for AT&T, and we had to go through training every year.
My 3rd line (my bosses bosses boss) helped make the video, and acted in it, pretending to behave inappropriately. He told us, years later, that making that video hurt his career, and he was sorry he participated.
I work for a state department, and yes, I have to do that kind of training annually. As someone who is part of a minority, I am very glad that training is required and that it specifically includes issues important to me.
Required web courses upon hiring included a unit on harassment.
It may seem like common sense, but:
1) If someone sues about a hostile work environment, the company can say they gave everyone clear instructions
2) A small number of people actually don’t know what’s appropriate. A guy I worked with was overly touchy with women and someone said, “please keep your hands to yourself.” His response was, “but I like the way you feel!” He was quickly unemployed.
Yes it’s been a yearly requirement for some time, along with ethics and other issues. Ours are online and some have questions and multiple choice answers.
I don’t mind it as some humans lack common sense. And as someone who had been sexually harassed in the past, I appreciate the effort to reduce it in future.
We’re any of you surprised by anything?
@Dutchess_III Yes, we have many immigrants in our workforce in the State of Hawaii, and the training expressly mentions not to degrade anyone for their accented English. I don’t do that, but I was surprised it was in the training. It wouldn’t surprise me on the Mainland, but here immigrants are everywhere, and we hear all different kinds of English all the time, so I was surprised it was in the training.
@Hawaii_Jake Were they advising not to mention anything about an accent, not to even compliment it?
Yes. Most companies go through some form of training. It helps remove their risk and put it on you.
@JLeslie What I take away from that training is that it’s safest not to comment on an accent at all.
I worked in local government, and there were so many trainings. Sexual harassment training, anti violence training, active shooter training. Every year, and the past few years it was online so they knew you did it, took the quizzes, passed the quizzes.
No. It’s covered in the handbook.
Yes, in my current employer, we have this harassment training too. Even if you have an idea on harassment training or even if you already know the concepts and just easy for your to understand what harassment is all about, I think having this kind of training in a company is important for awareness and to construct a safer workplace culture.
I think the better training for this type of topic is training on how to PREVENT harassment, because this will create a safer workplace for everyone; like by education employees, the said training helps them understand what sexual harassment is and makes them aware of it that it is being taken place on the company. This small investment made by your employer to provide a training for this type of topic is well worth the payoff for their employee’s protection.
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