Connecticut Sexual Harassment Training Requirements

Connecticut sexual harassment training requirements come from the Time’s Up Act, which amended CT Gen. Stat. § 46a-54 and sets two hours of interactive training as the baseline for most workforces. If your business has three or more employees, every worker must be trained within six months of hire and refreshed at least every ten years. If you have fewer than three, only supervisors need training, on the same schedule. You also have separate posting and written notice obligations that run alongside the training rule.

Who Has To Train, and Who Gets Trained

The threshold is three employees. At three or more, you must train every employee regardless of role, hours, or seniority.¹ Below three, you only owe training to supervisory employees.²

Headcount is counted across the whole company, not just the Connecticut office. The CHRO’s example makes this concrete: a Minnesota-based company with ten employees in Minnesota and one in Connecticut must train that one Connecticut-based employee.³ The statute defines “employee” broadly, including a worker employed by their own parent, spouse, or child.¹ Full-time, part-time, and seasonal workers all count.

The CHRO’s FAQ does not give a standalone definition of “supervisory employee” for small-employer purposes. If a role involves authority to hire, discipline, or direct others’ work and you’re unsure, training is free from the state, so the practical cost of being safe is small.

Deadlines for New Hires and the Ten-Year Refresh

New employees at organizations with three or more workers must complete training within six months of their hire date.¹ At smaller employers, new supervisors must be trained within six months of their hire date or the date they take on supervisory duties.²

After the initial session, supplemental training is required for both supervisory and non-supervisory employees not less than every ten years.¹ Ten years is the outer limit; more frequent refreshers are fine.

Because the initial compliance deadline for existing employees was October 1, 2020, the first supplemental cycle comes due by October 1, 2030. For anyone trained after that date, the ten-year clock starts from their individual completion date.

Credit for Prior CHRO Training

If a new hire completed in-person training provided by the CHRO or the free online CHRO course while working for a different employer within the two years before their hire date, the new employer can count that toward the initial requirement.¹ This credit applies only to CHRO-provided training, not to third-party programs the previous employer may have used.

Content and the Interactive Requirement

Each session must run at least two hours and cover federal and state sexual harassment law along with the remedies available to victims.¹ In practice, that means:

Legal definitions of sexual harassment under Connecticut and federal law, including hostile work environment and quid pro quo scenarios.
How to report harassment internally and how to file a complaint with the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities.
Retaliation protections for anyone who reports harassment or participates in an investigation.²
Practical prevention strategies for identifying and stopping harassing behavior.

The training has to be interactive. The CHRO reads that to mean participants can ask questions and get answers, either in a live Q&A or through a system that accepts questions and returns answers within a reasonable time.³ A pre-recorded video with no mechanism for questions does not qualify on its own.

Posting and Written Notice

Training is not the only duty. Employers with three or more employees must post information about the illegality of sexual harassment and the remedies available to victims in a prominent, accessible location at the workplace.¹

You also have to deliver that same information to every new employee no later than three months after their start date.¹ Acceptable delivery methods include:

Email to the employee’s company or personal address, with a subject line that includes “Sexual Harassment Policy” or similar language.
Posting on the employer’s website, if the employee has no email account and the employer maintains a site.
A link to the CHRO’s sexual harassment information page delivered by email, text message, or in writing.

The three-month notice deadline is separate from the six-month training deadline. Many employers handle both during onboarding, but they are legally distinct.

Records

The statute does not prescribe a format or retention period for training records, and the CHRO has said its own completion certificates are not required proof. Employers can track compliance however they prefer.⁴

That flexibility still calls for documentation. If a complaint arises, you’ll need to show training was delivered on time. A minimum log should include each employee’s name, the completion date, and the method used (CHRO online course, third-party vendor, or in-house session). Because supplemental training runs on a ten-year cycle, keep records at least that long so you can prove both initial and supplemental compliance.

The Free CHRO Course and Other Options

The Time’s Up Act required the CHRO to develop an online training video and offer it to employers at no cost.² The course uses video segments followed by quizzes and issues optional completion certificates. Employers can also link to it through the Business.CT.gov knowledge base.⁴

You are not required to use the CHRO course. Third-party vendors and in-house programs comply as long as they meet the two-hour duration, cover the required topics, and include an interactive component. Small businesses often default to the free CHRO option. Larger organizations sometimes prefer live sessions that weave in company-specific policies.

Penalties and Broader Exposure

An employer that fails to provide required training faces a civil fine of up to $1,000.⁵ The fine itself is modest. The larger exposure comes if a harassment claim is filed: an employer that skipped mandatory training has a harder time showing it took reasonable steps to prevent harassment, which is a central question in those cases.

Remote Workers and Out-of-State Employers

The training requirement follows the employee, not the headquarters. If your business is based outside Connecticut and has at least one employee working in the state, that employee must be trained, as long as your total headcount across all locations reaches three.³

For remote workers, the question is where the employee is based, not where they occasionally log in. A Connecticut resident working remotely for an out-of-state company falls under the law. Multi-state employers who hired remote workers without checking state-by-state training rules should audit their workforce locations and confirm compliance for each state where someone is physically working.

1
Justia Law. Connecticut Code 46a-54 – Commission Powers
2
Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. Sexual Harassment Prevention Resources
3
Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. Sexual Harassment Prevention Training FAQs
4
Business.CT.gov. Sexual Harassment Prevention Training for Employees
5
Connecticut General Assembly. An Act Combatting Sexual Harassment