What You Need to Know & How We Can Help

The City of Chicago recently changed its sexual harassment laws which will require employers and content providers to update their harassment prevention materials. Additional details can be found in the Outreach Flyer provided by the City of Chicago or at Chicago.gov/SexualHarassment.

We’ve engaged our legal counsel for guidance on what the new laws mean for CrunchTime’s (formerly DiscoverLink’s) Illinois Harassment Prevention program as well as employees and supervisors who have completed the Illinois program. We’ve summarized their guidance below and in the downloadable Chicago Sexual Harassment Laws Summary PDF. We encourage you to review this information with your own legal counsel, human resources, or risk management department to validate your organization agrees with this interpretation.

Download Chicago Sexual Harassment Laws Summary

Overview

The new law goes into effect July 1, 2022 and impacts harassment prevention materials in three ways:

  • EMPLOYER ANTI-HARASSMENT POLICY: Employers must make any needed changes to their company’s anti-harassment policy by July 1, 2022 and make the updated policy available to new hires in the employee’s primary language within the first calendar week of their employment.
  • ANTI-HARASSMENT POSTER: Employers must conspicuously display a poster that employees can see that advises of the prohibition on sexual harassment. This poster must be displayed in both English and Spanish. The City of Chicago will provide the poster on its website by July 1, 2022.
  • EMPLOYEE AND SUPERVISOR HARASSMENT PREVENTION TRAINING: The new law adds a seat-time requirement for training. Employees must receive one hour of training, supervisors must receive two hours of training, and both employees and supervisors must receive an additional one hour of training on bystander intervention. Employers have until June 30, 2023 to put employees and supervisors through the new materials.
What are CrunchTime’s plans for updating its Illinois harassment prevention program?

The CrunchTime (formerly DiscoverLink) content team is working with our legal counsel to create materials that will meet Chicago’s new seat time requirements. Our goal is to complete the new materials no later than end of December, 2022 to allow our Chicago customers six months to put staff members through the new program. Because the rest of Illinois has not adopted a seat time requirement, we plan to continue offering our existing Illinois Harassment Prevention program to Illinois customers outside the City of Chicago.

What does this mean for existing staff members and new hires after July 1, 2022?

For existing employees and supervisors who have already completed an Illinois Harassment Prevention program:

  • They will need access to your updated sexual harassment policy in their primary language.
  • They will need access to the new anti-harassment poster.
  • To avoid exposure, our recommendation is for employees who are up for recertification between July 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022 to recertify on the current Illinois Harassment Prevention program and then recertify again on the new Chicago materials between January 1, 2023 and June 30, 2023. Your support rep will work with you on options for making that as seamless as possible.

For new hires:

  • They will need access to your updated sexual harassment policy in their primary language.
  • They will need access to the new anti-harassment poster.
  • Employees and supervisors hired after July 1st 2022 will have until June 30, 2023 (one year) to complete the new harassment prevention materials that meet the seat time requirement. To avoid exposure, some companies may want to train new hires between July 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022 on the current Illinois Harassment Prevention program and then have those employees complete the new Chicago materials between January 1, 2023 and June 30, 2023. Your support rep will work with you on options for making that as seamless as possible.
These recommendations should be reviewed and approved by your legal counsel, human resources, or risk management department.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss options on the best approach to take for your team members in Chicago, please contact your Client Services Manager at discoverlink@zohosupport.com.