In May 2018, we reported on New York City’s recent enactment of a number of laws addressing sexual harassment in the workplace.  For further information, see our prior Global Workplace Insider post, New York City employers take note: New anti-sexual harassment laws enacted.  As we previously reported, effective September 6, 2018, all New York City employers must:

  • conspicuously display an anti-sexual harassment poster to be designed by the New York City Commission on Human Rights (in both English and Spanish); and
  • provide employees, at the time of hire, with an information sheet on sexual harassment.

The New York City Commission on Human Rights (the “Commission”) has recently published both the anti-sexual harassment poster and the information sheet on sexual harassment.

Anti-sexual harassment poster

The Commission’s recently published anti-sexual harassment poster may be found here.  At this time, only an English-language version of the poster has been published; the Commission’s website notes that a Spanish-language version of the poster is forthcoming.  Effective September 6, 2018, every New York City employer must conspicuously display the poster in employee breakrooms or other common areas where employees gather.  The size of the poster that is displayed must be at least 8½ x 14 inches.

New hire information sheet on sexual harassment

The Commission’s recently published information sheet for new hires may be found here (it is substantially the same as the anti-sexual harassment poster). Effective September 6, 2018, every New York City employer must distribute this information sheet to individual employees at the time of hire.  Employers may include this information sheet within an employee handbook, or distribute it as a stand-alone document.

Additional obligations forthcoming under both New York City and New York State law

As reported in our prior blog post, beginning April 1, 2019, New York City employers with 15 or more employees must provide anti-sexual harassment training to all of their New York City employees on an annual basis, and to all new hires within the first 90 days of their employment.  The Commission is expected to publish an online training module that can generally be used by employers to satisfy this training requirement, but this module has not yet been published.  Note that this New York City training requirement is in addition to the separate New York State sexual harassment training requirement, as reported in our prior legal update, New York employers should get ready to comply with New York State’s new sexual harassment prevention laws.  New York State employers should also note the upcoming October 9, 2018 deadline for updated sexual harassment policies under the New York State anti-sexual harassment law.  New York State is expected to issue a model policy that employers can adapt to meet these requirements, but this model policy has not yet been published.

We will continue to monitor developments under both the New York City and New York State anti-sexual harassment laws and report on relevant guidance as it is published.

For more information

Please contact us with any questions. We would be happy to assist your company with compliance with these new requirements.