New York City Anti-Sexual Harassment Training

New York City employers with at least 15 employees are required to conduct annual anti-sexual harassment training for all employees starting April 1, 2019. The New York Human Rights Commission recently released an FAQ document in preparation for the upcoming change.

Determining Eligibility

In order to determine whether an employer has at least 15 employees, the employer must look back at the number of employees it employed at any point within the prior calendar year. If the employer determines it has or had at least 15 employees at any point during that time, it will be subject to the annual sexual harassment training requirements.

This is specific to employees who work within New York City for 80 hours or more in a calendar year on a full time or part-time basis.

Significantly, independent contractors must be counted as “employees” in this calculation, regardless of the number of days or hours they work.

All employees, including short-term or part-time employees, as well as independent contractors, are subject to the training requirements if they:

1. Work more than 80 hours in a calendar year and
2. Work for at least 90 days.

Thus, if an employee has worked fewer than 90 days or 80 hours in a calendar year, they are not subject to the sexual harassment training requirements.

Independent contractors who otherwise meet the above requirements need not be trained if they have already received the required sexual harassment training elsewhere.

Training Requirements

Those subject to the training requirements must be trained every calendar year, as opposed to within one year of their last training.

Employers may choose to develop their own training, as long as the training meets the minimum requirements of the Local Law 96, or they may choose to use the training that will be developed by The New York Human Rights Commission and The New York State Division of Human rights and the New York State Department of Labor.

Employers must keep a record of all trainings, including signed employee acknowledgements (which may be electronic), for at least three years.

The New York City Commission on Human Rights is partnering with the New York State Division of Human Rights and the New York State Department of Labor so that NYC-based employers can meet compliance with both the New York State and New York City training requirements by utilizing the forthcoming online training provided by the New York City Commission on Human Rights. The online training will be available on or before April 1, 2019 for review.

Paylocity will be meeting the training requirements through our existing training modules available under compliance/ACA tools:

• Sexual Harassment Awareness & Prevention for Employees – New York
• Sexual Harassment Awareness & Prevention for Supervisors – New York

At this time, the agency is still finalizing the training requirements and we do not anticipate changes will be needed to the existing training modules based on the information we have today. Paylocity will continue to monitor the progress of these requirements and update these modules as needed to ensure compliance and we will provide additional alerts as more details become available.

Thank you for choosing Paylocity as your Payroll Tax and Human Capital management partner.

This information is provided as a courtesy, may change and is not intended as legal or tax guidance. Employers with questions or concerns outside the scope of a Payroll Service Provider are encouraged to seek the advice of a qualified CPA, Tax Attorney or Advisor.