Workplace culture is said to be the shared attitudes, values, belief systems, and set of assumptions that people in a workplace share.  This is largely influenced by the leaders of a company, whether it’s the owner, manager, or supervisor.  A positive workplace culture can impact employee engagement, teamwork, and productivity.  Companies with a healthy culture have a low turnover, which greatly reduces the cost of doing business.

One way for company owners and leaders to foster a positive culture is to provide training to their team members.  The government is even stepping in to require that employers provide specific training to its workforce.  The newest mandate is Senate Bill 1343, which requires all employers with five or more employees to provide harassment prevention training and education to all employees by January 1, 2020.  There has been a similar requirement on the books prior to this for larger employers with 50 or more employees.  This new law, however, impacts the small businesses.

 

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1343

 

Now, the instinct here may be to sigh, with a roll of the eyes and tremendous annoyance at yet another mandate.  But let’s think about this for a minute.  Is this, perhaps, an opportunity to have an open dialogue with our teams about a relevant and significant topic?  Could this be a chance to communicate with them about leadership’s beliefs of how harassment incidents will be addressed?  An even better opportunity to develop a written policy to let employees know that they are protected and safe from harassment?

The answers to all the above, of course, are a resounding yes.  Would you like to know more about classroom training that can be provided to help your company comply with SB 1343?  Combs Consulting Group can help!

https://combs.com/contact-us/