California SB 396 Anti-Harassment Training Requirements

California’s SB 396 amended the Fair Employment and Housing Act to require that mandatory workplace harassment prevention training explicitly cover gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation, and it added a transgender rights poster to the notices every covered employer must display.¹² If you employ five or more people, you owe supervisors two hours and every other worker one hour of interactive training every two years, and the next statewide deadline is January 1, 2027.³

Which Employers Are Covered

The threshold is five employees, counted across your whole workforce. Locations don’t matter. An employer with four workers in Los Angeles and two in Austin still meets the threshold.³ Full-time, part-time, temporary, and seasonal workers all count, and remote employees working from other states for a California-based company are covered too.

Temporary staffing has one exception worth flagging. When a temporary services employer sends a worker to a client, the staffing agency trains the worker, not the client company.¹

How Much Training, and by When

Two categories, two hour requirements, one two-year cycle:

Supervisors need at least two hours of effective interactive training every two years.
Non-supervisory employees need at least one hour every two years.¹

A supervisor, for these purposes, is anyone with authority to hire, transfer, promote, assign, reward, discipline, or discharge other employees, or to effectively recommend those actions, using independent judgment.⁴ Title doesn’t decide it. A team lead who conducts performance reviews that shape promotions is likely a supervisor. Someone who only passes along a manager’s instructions probably isn’t.

The current biennial cycle closes January 1, 2027. Every employee must have completed a fresh round of training by then.³ Waiting until December to schedule everyone is how employers miss it.

New hires and promotions run on their own clocks. A new non-supervisory employee must be trained within six months of hire. A newly promoted supervisor has six months from taking the role to complete supervisor-level training.⁵ Short-term hires taken on for less than six months have a tighter window: 30 calendar days from hire or 100 hours worked, whichever comes first.¹

What the Training Must Cover

SB 396’s specific contribution to the curriculum is that harassment based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation must be addressed explicitly, using practical examples of how that harassment shows up at work.³ Abstract definitions alone don’t satisfy the requirement. Training must also incorporate the Civil Rights Department’s definitions and resources, including guidance on an employee’s right to be addressed by their preferred name and pronoun.

Abusive conduct prevention is a separate required component. California defines abusive conduct as behavior carried out with malice that a reasonable person would find hostile, offensive, and unrelated to legitimate business interests, and it can include repeated verbal abuse such as insults or derogatory remarks.¹ That standard reaches general workplace bullying that meets the malice threshold, not only harassment tied to a protected characteristic.

Who Can Train and in What Format

Training has to come from someone with real expertise. Qualified trainers include attorneys who have practiced employment law for at least two years, human resources professionals or harassment prevention consultants with at least two years of practical experience, and law professors or instructors at accredited institutions who teach in this area.⁶

Four delivery formats meet the “effective interactive” standard:

Classroom instruction from a qualified trainer, held separately from daily work duties.
Individualized e-learning designed by a qualified trainer, with a way for employees to reach a trainer who can answer questions within two business days.
Webinar taught live by a qualified trainer over the internet.
Blended delivery that combines audio, video, or computer tools with one of the methods above; the supplemental tools alone won’t do it.⁵

Interactivity is what separates a compliant program from one that isn’t. A pre-recorded video with no path to ask questions doesn’t meet the standard.

The Transgender Rights Poster

SB 396 also requires a CRD-developed poster about transgender rights, displayed in a prominent and accessible location at every worksite.² It’s separate from the general employment discrimination poster that California employers were already required to display. The CRD provides it at no cost. Post it wherever other required workplace notices already hang.

Records You Have to Keep

Keep training documentation for at least two years. That includes the names of employees trained, the training date, sign-in sheets if used, copies of any certificates of attendance or completion, the type of training delivered, all written or recorded training materials, and the name of the training provider.⁵

For e-learning, the trainer must also retain a record of all written questions received from employees and all written responses provided, for the same two-year period.⁶ Employers with staff spread across sites usually find that a centralized electronic tracking system pays for itself the first time the CRD asks for documentation.

The Free CRD Option

The Civil Rights Department publishes its own free online courses in both supervisory and non-supervisory versions, available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Tagalog.⁷ They’re built to satisfy the statutory requirements, which makes them a workable baseline for smaller employers. One catch: the CRD doesn’t allow employers to copy or import the courses into their own e-learning platforms. Employees have to access the training through the CRD website.

What Happens If You Skip the Training

The Civil Rights Department enforces the training mandate. The statute doesn’t set a specific dollar fine for noncompliance, but the CRD can seek a court order compelling the employer to comply.⁵

The bigger exposure surfaces when a harassment claim arrives. Government Code section 12940 requires employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent discrimination and harassment, and completed training is central evidence of that reasonable care.⁸ In a lawsuit, a plaintiff’s attorney will ask whether training was provided and documented. If the answer is no, the defense gets a lot harder.

1
California Legislative Information. California Government Code GOV 12950.1
2
California Legislative Information. California Government Code GOV 12950
3
Civil Rights Department. Sexual Harassment Prevention Training For Employees FAQ
4
California Legislative Information. California Government Code GOV 12926
5
Civil Rights Department. Sexual Harassment Prevention Training – Information For Employers
6
California Civil Rights Department. Fair Employment and Housing Council Employment Regulations Regarding Harassment Prevention Training
7
California Civil Rights Department. Sexual Harassment Prevention Training
8
California Legislative Information. California Government Code GOV 12940