Ah, summer: less-demanding schedules, lighter workloads, and a more relaxed work wardrobe. In keeping with the professional reputation of lawyers as killjoys, however, we recommend that HR professionals act more like Aesop’s ants—using the summer to prepare for fall—than the grasshopper, who was so busy partying that he failed to prepare at all. So listen, Grasshopper: savvy HR leaders know to use their summer downtime to set themselves up for success when we all go “back to school.”
Here are seven suggestions of what New York HR professionals can get ahead of over the summer:
1. Coordinate Sexual Harassment Prevention Training – Under New York State law, all employers must provide annual sexual harassment prevention training that satisfies the State’s training requirements by October 9, 2019 (NYC has its own requirements, as we describe here). An employer can satisfy these requirements by either adopting the State’s model training documents or by providing live or interactive online/video training which meets or exceeds the State’s minimum standards. With a mid-fall deadline quickly approaching, summer is the perfect time to think about, and possibly complete, your workforce’s first annual training.