Illinois Harassment Policy Requirements for Employers

Illinois harassment policy requirements for employers fall into two parts: every employer with staff working in the state must provide annual sexual harassment prevention training, and certain employers must also maintain a written harassment policy that meets specific content requirements. Both obligations come from the Illinois Human Rights Act (IHRA), and skipping either one triggers civil penalties that stack on top of any liability for the underlying harassment.¹

Which Employers Must Have a Written Policy

The written policy mandate does not apply to every business in Illinois. The IHRA imposes it on three groups:

Public contractors and bidders. Every party to a public contract and every eligible bidder must have a written sexual harassment policy, regardless of employee count or contract value.²
State agencies. Every state executive department, agency, board, commission, and instrumentality must develop and maintain a written policy, reviewed annually.
Bars and restaurants. Under Section 2-110 of the IHRA, bars and restaurants must maintain a written policy in both English and Spanish and give a copy to every employee within the first calendar week of employment.³

Employers outside these categories are not legally required to keep a written policy, but doing so is the simplest way to prove the annual training was delivered and to give supervisors something concrete to follow when a complaint surfaces.

What the Written Policy Must Contain

For covered employers, the IHRA sets seven minimum elements. A policy missing any of them does not comply:

A clear statement that sexual harassment is illegal under Illinois law.
A definition of sexual harassment consistent with the IHRA.
A description of conduct that constitutes harassment, with specific examples.
The employer’s internal complaint process, including the penalties the employer may impose on violators.
Information about the legal recourse, investigative process, and complaint procedures available through the Illinois Department of Human Rights (IDHR) and the Illinois Human Rights Commission.
Contact information for the IDHR and the Commission.
A description of the retaliation protections under Sections 6-101 and 6-101.5 of the IHRA.²

The retaliation section is where policies most often fall short. Employees who report harassment or participate in an investigation are protected from adverse actions such as demotion, schedule changes, or termination. A one-line promise of “no retaliation” is not enough. The policy should describe what retaliation looks like and what the employer will do if it occurs.

State agencies must review their policy annually. The IHRA does not impose the same formal review cadence on public contractors or bars and restaurants, but the law changes often enough that a yearly walk-through is a practical necessity for anyone covered.

Annual Training Every Employer Must Provide

Section 2-109 of the IHRA requires every employer with employees working in Illinois to provide annual sexual harassment prevention training. Employer size does not matter. Part-time and temporary workers count.¹

You can build your own program or use the free model training the IDHR publishes. Either way, the training must cover:

An explanation of sexual harassment consistent with the IHRA’s definition.
Concrete examples of prohibited conduct.
A summary of federal and state statutes on sexual harassment, including the remedies available to victims.
A summary of the employer’s responsibilities in preventing, investigating, and correcting harassment.¹

If an employer fails to train, the IDHR issues a notice to show cause. The employer has 30 days to come into compliance. If the training still is not delivered, the IDHR petitions the Illinois Human Rights Commission for civil penalties.¹

Extra Rules for Bars and Restaurants

Bars and restaurants have to do more. On top of the standard annual training, Section 2-110 requires supplemental industry-specific training.³

That supplemental training must include industry-specific content, an explanation of manager liability, and must be available in both English and Spanish. Everyone gets trained: short-term workers, part-time staff, interns, and independent contractors working on-site alongside your employees.⁴

The point owners most often miss is the scope of responsibility for third parties. In this industry, employers are on the hook when customers harass employees, when vendors or delivery workers harass employees, and when the employer’s own staff harasses customers. The training must cover all three. Tolerating harassment from a regular patron is a compliance failure in the same way that tolerating harassment from a co-worker is.⁴

Annual Adverse Judgment Disclosure

Section 2-108 of the IHRA requires any employer that had an adverse judgment or administrative ruling against it during the preceding calendar year to file a disclosure with the IDHR by July 1 of the following year. For calendar year 2025, the deadline is July 1, 2026.⁵

The disclosure lists the total number of adverse judgments or administrative rulings, whether any equitable relief was ordered, and a breakdown by category of discrimination (sexual harassment, race, religion, age, disability, and so on). Employers may not include victims’ names.⁶

Missing the deadline triggers the same 30-day show-cause process as a training failure, followed by civil penalties if the employer still does not file.

What Harassment Covers Under the IHRA

Harassment under the IHRA reaches well beyond sex. The statute covers unwelcome conduct based on an individual’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, sex, marital status, order of protection status, disability, military status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, unfavorable discharge from military service, citizenship status, work authorization status, or family responsibilities.⁷

The last three categories are recent additions and are easy to overlook when drafting or updating a policy. Citizenship status and work authorization status protect lawfully present non-citizens from harassment tied to their immigration or work-permit situation. Family responsibilities covers employees providing personal care to a family member as defined in the Employee Sick Leave Act. A policy that lists only the older protected classes leaves gaps that could create liability.

Penalties for Non-Compliance

The IHRA imposes two separate layers of penalties, and employers sometimes confuse them. One layer punishes paperwork failures. The other punishes the harassment itself.

Policy, Training, and Disclosure Violations

An employer that violates Sections 2-108, 2-109, or 2-110 faces civil penalties that scale with employer size and offense count:⁸

Employers with fewer than 4 employees: up to $500 for a first offense, $1,000 for a second, and $3,000 for a third or subsequent offense.
Employers with 4 or more employees: up to $1,000 for a first offense, $3,000 for a second, and $5,000 for a third or subsequent offense.

The Commission weighs the employer’s good faith efforts to comply and the gravity of the violation when setting the amount.⁸

Actual Harassment Violations

When an employer is found to have committed an actual civil rights violation, the numbers get much larger. Effective January 1, 2026, the Commission can impose civil penalties per violation, with a separate penalty for each specific act and each aggrieved individual:⁹

Up to $16,000 per violation for an employer with no prior violations.
Up to $42,500 per violation with one prior violation in the last 5 years.
Up to $70,000 per violation with two or more prior violations in the last 7 years.

Because penalties apply per act and per victim, a pattern of harassment across several employees can produce cumulative exposure well into six figures.

Remedies an Employee Can Recover

Civil penalties are paid to vindicate the public interest. Separately, the Commission can order remedies that go to the individual employee:⁹

Actual damages, including compensation for emotional distress.
Back pay from the date of the violation, with interest.
Hiring, reinstatement, or promotion, with or without back pay.
Restoration of fringe benefits the employee was denied.
Reasonable attorney fees and expert witness fees the employee incurred.

Total exposure in a harassment case therefore combines individual damages, the per-violation civil penalty, and any separate penalties for the training, policy, or disclosure failures that surface during the investigation. The compliance side of that equation is the cheap part. Deliver the annual training, keep the written policy current and complete, file the July 1 disclosure if you had an adverse ruling, and document all of it.

1
Illinois Department of Human Rights. Minimum Sexual Harassment Prevention Training Standards for All Employers
2
Illinois Department of Human Rights. Sexual Harassment Model Policy
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Illinois Department of Human Rights. Training Standards for Restaurants and Bars, Sexual Harassment Prevention
4
Illinois Department of Human Rights. Sexual Harassment Prevention Training for Bars and Restaurants
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Illinois Department of Human Rights. Report Adverse Judgments and Administrative Rulings Under 5/2-108
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Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 775 ILCS 5/2-108
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Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 775 ILCS 5 – Illinois Human Rights Act
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Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 775 ILCS 5/8-109.1
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Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 775 ILCS 5/8A-104