Sexual Harassment Training Requirements Are Increasing

The U.S. Congress is going through a few changes, including the requirement of sexual harassment training for all members and staff. But according to Bloomberg reports, expectations are not high as some states have instituted similar requirements to no avail.
 
California and Connecticut have made sexual harassment training mandatory for supervisors in companies with more than 50 employees. In Maine, firms with 15 or more workers must provide training. They require information to be posted in the workplace that details the complaint process for employees who have been subject to harassment.
 
None of these states have seen a meaningful decrease in reports of sexual harassment since training became mandatory.
 
Starting this year, California requires all janitorial services firms to provide training because it’s a job where men often supervise women working in empty buildings after regular business hours. New York is considering mandatory training for companies that employ maids.
 
Maine became the first state to require training in 1991. But enforcement only became a focus last year, said Amy Sneirson, executive director of the Maine Human Rights Commission.
 
“[Sexual harassment] is pretty resistant to any training, because the people who are going to do it, don’t care,” she said in the article. “Generally speaking, the sexual harassment complaints that we get tend to be based on situations where there’s a power differential between the harasser and the person who is being harassed. That hasn’t changed as much as you’d like to think.”
 
To read more on the changes being instituted, click here.