NY Sexual Harassment Training Requirements: Policy, Format, Records

New York sexual harassment training requirements apply to every employer in the state, of every size: under Labor Law Section 201-g you must provide annual, interactive sexual harassment prevention training to every employee, distribute a written policy in each employee’s primary language, and keep records that prove you did it. Employers in New York City with 15 or more employees have to meet additional content and posting rules enforced by the NYC Commission on Human Rights.

Which Employers and Employees Are Covered

The state law has no size threshold. A business with a single employee has the same obligation as one with ten thousand, and there are no industry carve-outs. “All employees” is read broadly to include full-time, part-time, seasonal, and temporary workers.¹ If you pay someone to work in New York, you owe them training.

New York City layers a second set of rules on top. Under Administrative Code Section 8-107(30), NYC employers with 15 or more employees must provide training that meets the city’s expanded content requirements. Independent contractors count toward the 15-employee threshold regardless of how many hours or days they work, so a company with 10 regular employees and 5 contractors is a covered NYC employer. An individual independent contractor must be trained if they work more than 80 hours in a calendar year and for at least 90 days.²

When Training Must Happen

Every covered employee must complete the training once per calendar year.¹ For new hires, the state does not set a specific number of days. Earlier draft guidance from the Department of Labor floated a 30-day window, but the final guidance dropped that number and tells employers to train new hires as soon as possible after their start date. Most employers fold it into the first week or two of onboarding.

NYC is more concrete: new employees who work more than 80 hours in a calendar year must complete training after 90 days of initial hire.³ If a new hire already completed qualifying training at another employer during the same calendar year and can produce documentation, you can accept that in place of retraining. If they cannot, retrain them. The obligation to prove compliance always sits with the current employer.²

What the Training Must Cover

The Department of Labor and Division of Human Rights publish minimum content standards. You can use the state’s free model program or build your own, but a custom program cannot leave any of these out.⁴ Every training must include:

A definition of sexual harassment consistent with state guidance, covering both quid pro quo harassment and hostile work environment claims.
Concrete examples of conduct that crosses into unlawful harassment.
An overview of the federal and state laws that prohibit harassment and the remedies available.
Information on where to file complaints, including the state Division of Human Rights, the federal EEOC, and the courts.
The specific responsibilities of supervisors in preventing harassment and responding to complaints.

NYC employers must cover all of the above and add several topics: an explanation of the city’s human rights law, the prohibition against retaliation with specific examples, bystander intervention techniques, and contact information for the NYC Commission on Human Rights.⁵ The bystander piece teaches employees practical ways to safely step in when they witness harassment happening to someone else, and it is the biggest content gap between the state minimum and the city rule.

Interactive Format: What Actually Counts

Training must be interactive. Handing someone a pamphlet or playing a video they watch in silence does not qualify. There has to be some engagement between the trainee and the material.⁶

Acceptable formats include online modules with questions built in, live webinars where participants can submit questions in real time, and in-person sessions with a discussion component or a written feedback survey. The state warns that its own model video, played on its own, does not meet the standard. If you use the video, you also have to do at least one of the following: ask employees questions during the program, accept and answer employee questions in a timely way, or collect written feedback about the materials.⁶ Naming a specific person employees can contact with follow-up questions helps show the training was genuinely interactive. Under the city law, interactive training does not have to be live or in-person; online programs count as long as they involve real participation.³

Written Policy and Multilingual Notice

Training is only half of Section 201-g. Every employer must also adopt a written sexual harassment prevention policy. You can use the state’s model policy or write your own, as long as a custom policy meets or exceeds the same minimum standards.¹

The written notice containing the policy and training information has to go to every employee at two moments: at hire and again at each annual training. It has to be provided in English and in the employee’s identified primary language. The Department of Labor publishes translated templates for common languages. If a template is not available for a particular language, the English version satisfies the requirement, and employers will not be penalized for errors in state-provided translations.¹ Employers who run training every year but never formalize and distribute the written policy have a separate violation on their hands.

Extra NYC Requirements: Poster and Fact Sheet

All employers in the city, regardless of size, must display an anti-sexual harassment rights and responsibilities poster in a visible common area, in both English and Spanish. They must also give every new hire a fact sheet, which can live inside the employee handbook.⁷ The Commission provides both documents free.

Record-Keeping

Keep records showing who attended each training, the date it was completed, and some acknowledgment from each employee, whether a signature, a digital confirmation, or a completed answer sheet.

NYC Local Law 96 of 2018 requires employers to retain training records for at least three years.² The state statute does not specify a retention period, but three years is a sensible floor for any New York employer. It matches the city rule and gives you a buffer against delayed complaints or audits. Digital records are easier to produce during an inspection than binders of signed forms.

Penalties for Non-Compliance

Enforcement runs on two tracks. At the state level, the Division of Human Rights can investigate complaints and impose civil penalties. Under Executive Law Section 297.4(c), fines reach $50,000 for a standard finding of unlawful discrimination and up to $100,000 when the violation is found to be willful, wanton, or malicious.⁸ Those penalties apply broadly to unlawful discriminatory practices, which can include a failure to maintain required training and policy programs when that failure contributes to a harassment claim.

At the city level, under Administrative Code Section 8-126 the NYC Commission on Human Rights can impose civil penalties up to $250,000 for unlawful discriminatory practices, including training-mandate violations.⁹ The practical risk is that a training gap becomes evidence in a private harassment lawsuit: if you cannot show you met your training obligations, that undercuts the standard defense that you took reasonable steps to prevent and correct harassment.

Free State Training Materials

New York State publishes a complete set of free training materials any employer can use to satisfy the state requirements: a downloadable training video, a slide deck with an accompanying script, and a fillable answer sheet employees complete during the session to meet the interactive requirement.⁶ The state also publishes a model written policy you can adopt without modification.

For a small business with no HR department or training budget, this is the simplest path. Show the video, have employees fill out the answer sheet, collect the signed forms, and keep them on file. Video plus answer sheet satisfies both the content and interactivity requirements under state law. NYC employers will still need to supplement the state materials with the city-required topics like bystander intervention and retaliation examples, because the state model on its own does not cover everything the city mandates.

1
New York State Senate. NY Labor Code 201-G – Prevention of Sexual Harassment
2
NYC Commission on Human Rights. Frequently Asked Questions – Stop Sexual Harassment in NYC Act
3
American Legal Publishing. New York City Administrative Code 8-107 – Unlawful Discriminatory Practices
4
New York State. Minimum Standards for Sexual Harassment Prevention Training
5
NYC Commission on Human Rights. Sexual Harassment Prevention Training
6
New York State. Sexual Harassment Prevention Model Policy and Training
7
NYC Commission on Human Rights. Stop Sexual Harassment Act Fact Sheet and Posters
8
Cornell Law Institute. 9 NYCRR 466.12 – Payment of Civil Fines and Penalties in Installments by Employers of Fewer Than 50 Employees
9
New York City Code Library. New York City Administrative Code 8-126 – Civil Penalties Imposed by Commission for Unlawful Discriminatory Practices or Acts of Discriminatory Harassment or Violence