Sexual Harassment Training

A growing area of loss exposure to both paid and volunteer departments is employment practices liability (EPL), which includes areas such as hiring, discipline, promotion, harassment and discrimination. Related to this, the department has adopted some policies and guidelines to address these areas. To insure that these policies and guidelines are properly and consistently implemented, training should be provided for all management, supervisory and other staff on a frequent basis.

Subsequently, it is recommended that all staff be trained in Sexual Harassment and Discrimination as soon as reasonably possible. A copy of the VFIS program Harassment and Discrimination Prevention Training is being forwarded to you to assist in the delivery of this training. Further support in controlling EPL loss exposures is provided by the VFIS quarterly newsletter “Employment Practices” which covers current topics and court decisions. Current and back issues of the newsletter can be found at www.vfis.com/employment_practices.htm. Obviously, any newly developed policies should be reviewed by legal counsel specializing in human resources/employment liability before being implemented to ensure that they meet current legal standards and requirements and existing policies should be routinely reviewed as well.

Available Resources

• VFIS Employment Practice Update Newsletters
• Sexual Harassment Part 2
• Sexual Harassment Part 1
• Sexual Harassment - Employee Practice Exposure