Best Harassment Prevention Training Software
Best Harassment Prevention Training Software At A Glance
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Learn More About Harassment Prevention Training Software
What is Harassment Prevention Training Software?
Harassment prevention training software delivers learning to employees and managers to improve workplace literacy on anti-discrimination and bullying policies and practices. It also mitigates potential litigation risks. Sometimes known as harassment prevention training solutions, these platforms focus on modifying workplace behavior and eliminating illicit verbal, physical, or even sexual behavior.
Depending on the locale, anti-harassment training is required by local, state-wide, or national regulations to bring an office into compliance with federal discrimination laws. They’re implemented both proactively and reactively to create a better office environment.
What Types of Harassment Prevention Training Software Exist?
Whether buying or designing a training program to increase workplace literacy, buyers must ask one crucial question. What objectives should harassment prevention training include? Some training objectives that a prevention program should include are preventing incidents, improving retention, contributing to overall workplace health and safety, and mitigating risk for the organization.
Here are some common harassment prevention training software:
Workplace bullying prevention
Bullying manifests as a pattern of hurtful behavior against one or more targeted individuals in an office. This could include swearing, exclusion, destruction or theft of property, teasing, mocking, or other forms of intimidation. Whether the result of ignorance, negligence, or malicious intent, this training helps workers identify problematic behaviors and root them out before they spread.
Workplace violation reporting
Many offices employ whistleblowing software or other ways of anonymously disclosing inappropriate behavior. This software outlines where to find this technology, how to use it, and what information to include in case of witnessing or being subjected to policy violations.
Anti-retaliation training
Retaliation occurs when those in leadership positions, often managers or supervisors, use their power to hurt or intimidate people below them who have asserted their rights in some way. In the US, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) outlines retaliation as “Taking an action that might deter a reasonable person from participating in activity protected by antidiscrimination and whistleblower laws.” Whether a change in job duties, intimidation, or other hurtful behavior, retaliation is defined by its reactive nature, which can deter other workers from taking steps to discuss or report workplace issues.
Sexual harassment prevention training
Sexual harassment is defined as any abusive or negative behavior related to a person’s sex. This can include remarks about a person’s appearance, unwanted and untoward advances, requests for sexual favors, and other negative verbal, physical, or behavioral misconduct that’s sexual in nature. It can also include remarks, assumptions, and hostile behavior directed toward someone based on sex, i.e., comments about women or other protected genders in the workplace.
DEI and discrimination prevention
Many modules aim to prevent discrimination in the workplace based on gender, race, age, religion, immigration status, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, or other protected identity status. Other workplaces further include a more welcoming workplace with diversity, equity, and inclusive (DEI) training that focuses on making the workplace a more friendly, habitable place for everyone and removing barriers that may currently be preventing specific groups from succeeding in the workplace. Other inclusive conceptions include making more welcoming workplaces and fostering a sense of belonging.
New York, California, and other regional requirements
Harassment prevention training requirements vary by state, locality, region, and country.
- California: Requires anti-harassment training for workplaces with five or more employees.
AB 1825: A 2007 California law that mandates immediate and continuous sexual harassment training for supervisors.
SB 1343: A law from 2021 that mandates sexual harassment training for employees.
- Delaware: The 19 Delaware Code Chapter 7 prohibits employment discrimination based on color, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), nationality, sexual orientation, disability, age (40 or older), genetic information, or marital status.
- Illinois: All parties on public contracts and eligible bidders must have sexual harassment policy covering employees and employment applicants.
- Maine: Requires anti-harassment training for workplaces with 15 or more employees.
- New York: Requires yearly employee sexual harassment training for places with one or more employees.
What are the Common Features of Harassment Prevention Training Software?
The following are some core features of harassment prevention training software:
Training assignment: Users can add employees, group them by role, and assign and schedule mandatory training.
Course creation and customized learning: Some solutions allow users to create their own compliance training or give them access to a library of pre-made content. Administrators can personalize user learning paths if specific groups need more information on specific policies as a part of their work.
Tracking: Admins can see pending and completed courses and track down/remind workers who haven’t completed them.
Completion dates: Users can assign due dates or track when assignments and quizzes must be completed.
Communication: Some harassment prevention training platforms allow the admin to choose a line of communication—messaging, email, etc., to remind learners to complete their training.
Multimedia: Users can upload multimedia such as videos, infographics, storytelling, or live classroom streams.
Microlearning: Users can deliver bite-size learning chunks in a one-off setting to improve worker understanding throughout the day, often available on multiple devices.
Gamification: This can include interactive games or scenarios or more complex storytelling within the lesson.
Testing: Users have the option to finish harassment prevention modules with tests to understand what employees have learned. Quizzes come with options like true-false, multiple-choice, or essay questions. The incorrect answer can be identified immediately and come with explanations.
Accessibility options: Some software can include features for learners with disabilities, such as text-to-speech, closed captioning, or other technological options.
Integration: Depending on the software, it may integrate with corporate learning management systems, whistleblowing software, core HR software, skills management software, or other parts of the tech stack.
Certificates: Administrators can award certificates or create their own. They may also provide documentation to prove users have completed courses.
Types of training:
- Self-paced: Users learn at their own pace and on their own time.
- Instructor-led: Live or recorded video where one specific leader teaches the materials, like a more traditional lecture.
- Group learning: Involves several people in a digital or physical classroom.
What are the Benefits of Harassment Prevention Training Software?
Harassment prevention training software is a requirement, not just a bonus, in the modern workplace. So is harassment prevention training software worth it? Yes, it’s not a difficult answer. However, despite the legislation that can mandate this training annually, there are multiple benefits to complying with these regulations.
Better employee retention: Creating an office where people learn to detect conflict, sometimes before it happens, weeds out conflict and stressful situations, making for more harmonious working conditions. This is especially important for educating well-intentioned workers who may not recognize harassment without training and empowering bystanders to intercede and help with problematic situations.
Increased morale: Workers who feel safe and valued are more likely to be productive, happy community members. When this happens, turnover drops, making coworkers feel safer investing in each other and themselves.
Improved company culture: A culture with an intact whistleblowing system prevents bad apples from spoiling the whole bunch. Proper training, anonymous reporting, and a more transparent culture make employees feel welcome.
Reduced cost: Implementing training courses today is a relatively low-cost investment for the future. If minutes of training can prevent months of suffering, it’s a no-brainer.
Risk mitigation: Small businesses especially can be at a huge risk for criminal liability if they haven’t done their due diligence implementing training. Avoiding sexual harassment, discrimination, and other potential litigation, saves the company time and money and, most importantly, protects its reputation.
Who Uses Harassment Prevention Training Software?
Here are a few types of users of this software in an organization.
Employees: The most casual users of this software. Workers use these solutions to take required training, often part of onboarding, and then have annual reviews of the materials. In addition to earning certificates or badges, they may get graded on the material and have to sign waivers to ensure they’ve understood the material.
Managers: Training is often different for managers and supervisors who must contend with more extreme examples and take on more responsibility when observing and reporting behaviors. They may be responsible for ensuring workers have completed training or solely be responsible for their own.
HR administrators: In the HR department, higher-level administrators may have to judge the effectiveness of harassment prevention training and ensure it’s enforced. They may look at various analytics or reports to ensure the programs are working properly or be in charge of creating the lessons themselves, depending on the company's size and solution.
Executives: Other than ensuring the training takes place, executives may want to look at the high-level reports to ensure the company's risk and liability are correctly managed.
What are the Alternatives to Harassment Prevention Training Software?
There aren’t exactly alternatives to prevention training software; however, there are a few options when it comes to seeking out training.
Standalone software: For organizations with more serious needs, a standalone niche solution that even provides customization or design training could be the best option.
Corporate learning management systems: Many Corporate LMSs author e-learning content that offers content related to anti-harassment training or partner with industry-specific content providers.
Training & development companies: These companies offer more comprehensive services and plan, create, and deploy services via technology from start to finish. These third parties handle the entire process comprehensively.
Software Related to Harassment Prevention Training Software
Related solutions that can be used together with harassment prevention training software include the following.
Whistleblowing software: This software allows users to report suspected or witnessed violations anonymously. It is essential for creating a transparent work environment and is often paired with harassment prevention training software.
Course authoring software: When training needs are more complex, organizations may choose to create their lessons in-house. In this case, course authoring software is essential for making SCORM-compliant training courses, doubly so when organizations hope to produce thought leadership content that may even be monetizable.
Microlearning platforms: This software delivers small, bite-sized lessons throughout the day and may include anti-workplace harassment content. It is often an accessible way to remind employers and managers alike of potential daily risks.
Challenges with Harassment Prevention Training Software
Every software has unique challenges, and that’s certainly true for anti-harassment training software. Here are a few of the challenges that may come up:
Selecting the right training: Between balancing concerns about bullying, sexual harassment, discrimination, employee-led problems, and supervisor-specific worries, it’s vital to ensure users get all the information they need with a well-balanced curriculum.
Accessibility: Are accommodations easy to make? Can everyone take the training without any barriers? Accessibility is always a significant concern, especially when discussing online training required by law to protect a company.
Implementation: Workers don’t like taking time out of their day to complete training, but they must. Organizations need to ensure they’re completing courses and signing necessary waivers. It’s also good to test knowledge retention to ensure the workforce is well versed in workplace policy.
Compliance and maintenance: Laws change. What was adequate six months ago may now leave an organization hopelessly out of date. In the same way, many states require organizations to update employees and managers on compliance training yearly or bi-yearly. Ensuring the solution is compliant and the training is frequent enough is a time intensive yet vital matter.
How to Buy Harassment Prevention Training Software
Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for Harassment Prevention Training Software
Understanding the regional requirements is essential, so knowing where an organization operates and how the laws of various regions impact those operations is a good first step. Examining the laws of those regions gives users a good idea of how often they need to deliver training and up to what standards. From there, users can find solutions that tailor training based on laws. Once that’s completed, it’s essential to understand the user base, the necessarily required topics, any areas of focus, and an ideal deployment model. Above all, knowing how much work a company can provide on its end gives an organization an idea of how comprehensive they need the training to be and indicates any accompanying services required.
Compare Harassment Prevention Training Software Products
Create a long list
For the first round, buyers must not consider practical concerns as much and make an extensive list of potential harassment prevention training vendors. They must have a list of requirements and features at hand.
Create a short list
Once the long list is finished, it’s time to get practical. Buyers can think about the cost and weigh the pros and cons. Depending on cost and resources, the buyer may want to get it down to only a few contenders or demo a long list of contenders if time permits.
Conduct demos
Buyers must create a team with users from different organizations and touchpoints throughout organizations. An IT user catches different things than a marketer or an administrator. Buyers must demo extensively—group demos, individual demos—and consider how accessible the solution is across the organization.
Selection of Harassment Prevention Training Software
Choose a selection team
Buyers must choose people who intimately understand the tech stack, the company’s workflow, the customer, the theory behind it, and how it fits into the company mission. These can be people from sales, marketing, IT, administration, human resources, the executive branch, and a few average random employees.
Negotiation
If customization is a priority, buyers must be prepared to pay more but also be firm. For more standard SaaS models, they must consider all necessary add-ons. Above all, they must consider the legacy systems involved, the implementation costs, and the ongoing services. Skimping out leaves the company at great risk, but it’s important to be firm.
Final decision
Ultimately, this decision should be in the hands of a specialized team. While everyone needs to use this software, getting too many people involved isn’t practical or necessary. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not important to collect as much feedback as possible.
What Does Harassment Prevention Training Software Cost?
The cost of harassment prevention training software breaks down into a few buckets. First, there may be a year subscription fee or a one-time license fee for the software. Users need to spend time implementing it, which may cost them lost hours, and then taking the training. From there, costs come in for maintaining the training and ensuring compliance with local, regional, national, and international laws and policies. This may be born by the solution itself since they are required to be up to date, or it could be put upon the user depending on the size of the solution.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Calculating the ROI for harassment prevention training software is tricky because one of the biggest cost considerations comes in the form of potential litigation. Discrimination cases could result in lengthy court cases, damage to reputation, and even back pay. While a free harassment prevention training solution could potentially be a good fit for a small company, knowing that a solution is up to date with local laws creates an unmatchable peace of mind. All these complicated factors must come in when assessing which harassment prevention training tool suits an organization.
