New California Sexual-Harassment Training Law: Proskauer Rose and We Comply Unveil Innovative Online Program to Help Companies Train Supervisors

NEW YORK March 14, 2005 Leading labor and employment law firm Proskauer Rose LLP has partnered with WeComply, Inc. to offer the first fully customizable online training program designed to help companies comply with the new California sexual harassment training law. Signed into law last year by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the statute requires companies with more than 50 employees to provide their California supervisors at least two hours of training on "preventing discrimination, harassment and retaliation" at least every two years, with the first compliance deadline coming up on January 1, 2006.With Proskauer's most up-to-date employment-law content, the program helps supervisors recognize and deal with all forms of workplace discrimination and harassment, with a special emphasis on sexual harassment. The two-hour program combines text, video vignettes, interactive exercises, "expert commentary" from Proskauer attorneys, and links to news items and other helpful resources. It also includes a mechanism for evaluating employees' understanding of the material. All content is customizable so that companies can insert their own anti-discrimination policies, modify the text so that it is industry and/or company-specific, and emphasize issues of particular importance to their supervisors - all with the use of a simple web-based interface. The program tracks usage and scoring and reports information to the company for compliance-auditing purposes.

"Employee training is an essential component of every company's efforts to manage the risks of workplace harassment, and the more custom-tailored the training is to a particular company's needs and corporate culture, the more effective it will be," said Anthony Oncidi, a labor and employment partner in Proskauer's Los Angeles office, who spearheaded the development of the program. "WeComply's unique and customizable delivery system ensures that our content will be adaptable to the needs of individual companies and their workforces in a convenient and cost-effective way."