The Connecticut legislature recently passed Substitute Senate Bill No. 1023 (Pub. Act. No. 21-109) which makes minor changes to employer obligations and requirements to provide sexual harassment education. The new change allows employees in certain situations to “carry over” their past trainings to new employers within a two-year period and remain in compliance. The new bill also expands the statute of limitations for certain types of actions brought before the state's Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO).

The harassment prevention training requirement changes, overseen by the CHRO, allow employees who—in the past two years—have received “in-person training provided by the commission” or “taken the no cost online training provided by the commission,” to count that training as valid regardless of which employer the training was completed for.

In other words, employees who change employers—provided their training occurred in the two-year window—will be exempt from having to take the harassment prevention training again with their new employer. This saves both employers compliance time, and new employees valuable time by allowing their compliance to be valid beyond merely one employer.

Importantly, employees who received trainings offered by non-commission third parties, such as human resources firms, employment and labor law firms, and other groups, will not be exempted from the compliance requirement. If your training is not from the CHRO directly, you and your new employees will have to abide by the old standard and conduct training to remain in compliance.

The law makes no changes to the compliance requirement that all employers, regardless of the source of their original training, must continue to provide periodic supplemental trainings for all supervisory and nonsupervisory employees every ten years.

The changes to the statute also extend the filing dates for all claims arising under discrimination to 300 days. Previously, the statute capped claims for housing and accommodation discrimination claims at 180 days, while claims arising from employment discrimination could be filed any time before 300 days. Now, beginning on or after October 1, 2021, all claims arising in discrimination—regardless of their origin—will be extended to 300 days.

If you have questions about which trainings can be accepted and how to satisfy the CHRO's sexual harassment training compliance requirements, do not hesitate to consult with the experienced attorneys at Rose Kallor, LLP by calling 860.361.7999.