Webinar Replay #56: Sexual Harassment Training for Truck Drivers

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Steve Kessler: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Infinit-I Workforce Solutions Fast Forward Webinar series.

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Steve Kessler: My name’s Steve Kessler, and I’m going to host the program today. We have a very interesting topic today, we’re gonna

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Steve Kessler: talk about breaking down sexual harassment training and probably talk about harassment and discrimination in general. Yeah, I have to say, having been around this business for quite a long time.

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Steve Kessler: We used to not think too much about this kind of training in the in the transportation and trucking industry. But as our guest, Keith and I have talked about, times have changed.

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Steve Kessler: and some pretty important to make sure you understand what this is all about, and make sure that you’re doing the proper training for your folks. So why don’t you all jump on the chat. Let us know who you are, where you’re from. Maybe the company you’re with so we can get to know who’s here.

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Steve Kessler: I see we have some of our good customers here. Thank you all for doing that. And while you all are working on the chat, I’m gonna introduce you to our guest today. Some of you, if you’ve been on our webinars in the past, have have come to know Keith long goes by the transportation nerd

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Steve Kessler: Keith is a commercial transportation subject matter expert, he’s a transportation content creator, training programs manager, and a SOP developer.

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Steve Kessler: He’s an experienced safety training classroom instructor and a post-incident trainer.

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Steve Kessler: Keith’s also a former certified commercial examiner for the State of Iowa.

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Steve Kessler: So welcome, Keith. Glad to have you here today.

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Keith Long: Yeah, thanks for having me back, Steve.

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Steve Kessler: Appreciate you joining us. I’m looking forward to what you have to tell us so. Why don’t you jump on in and help us understand this business about harassment and discrimination?

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Keith Long: Yep, absolutely well, I mean for starters. You hit it on the head right? This is

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Keith Long: in this industry, not typically

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Keith Long: something in the past that we’ve put as a forward focus for training. Right?

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Keith Long: We typically think about transportation training as transportation related skills. You’re backing, You’re driving, your pre-trip inspection, proficiency with hours of service, and dot compliance, right? But

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Keith Long: when you get into the other things that need to be a focus.

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Keith Long: this sexual harassment training which we’ll call it for now. But we’ll get to further into that topic in a minute

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Keith Long: really is just as much or should be just as much part of your training as anything else is.

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Keith Long: so

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Keith Long: we’re going to talk.

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Keith Long: I guess, all about evermore. Con this ever more common staple training. While some States have not gone on gotten on board yet, it is important to realize that you should that is, whether you’re in transportation or in another industry. This should be a staple of your training. So

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Keith Long: what the EEOC tells us, or equal employment opportunity commission and that’s Federal.

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Keith Long: So that employees have the right to work in a harassment and discrimination free work, environment.

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Keith Long: Now it is the duty of the employer to ensure that this holds true.

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Keith Long: However, it is the collective effort of all the employees that support and create that environment. And that’s, you know, your internal employees, your office employees as well as your drivers, who are operating as the public face of your company.

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Keith Long: However, as you begin to navigate these waters, or if you’re navigating these waters already, you know that regulations are constantly changing more and more training as often required. So, without a training, roadmap.

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Keith Long: employees and employers might not know how to help foster that safe environment.

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Keith Long: So, we’re going to cover a handful of topics today and get as close as we can to a deep dive on this subject of harassment and discrimination, prevention training. And that’s kind of what we’re going to lean towards calling it. We’re going to get away from the term

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Keith Long: sexual harassment training because we’re just scratching

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Keith Long: the surface there.

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Keith Long: So first, we’re gonna talk about some of the common questions surrounding training of this nature. The benefits to you as a company and the benefits to your employees.

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Keith Long: What you’re risking if you don’t have this type of training.

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Keith Long: Of course, what a proper training should contain. then state, local, and federal requirements and

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Keith Long: kind of where you can find those and what you need to stick to. And what a lot of those entail but beyond that, we’re also gonna talk about delivering training

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Keith Long: and how to deliver training.

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Keith Long: So first off. Let’s start out with that. Let’s start out with why.

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Keith Long: So, when it comes to this type of training for many, the question can be.

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Keith Long: why should you have an anti-harassment or sexual harassment prevention training program?

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Keith Long: Why should I provide this training? If I operate in one of the 23 States? Hear that 1 of the 23 States that do not require anti-harassment or sexual harassment training.

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Keith Long: Why is a small business owner? Should you provide this type of training. Or maybe you don’t fall into the why’s. Maybe as a business owner or employee, you fall into the what

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Keith Long: right what type of employ? Or what type of training should I provide? What needs to be included in this training?

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Keith Long: What are the general legal requirements? And, of course. What are the consequences of not providing this training. As I mentioned a minute ago. Tthere are 23 states

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Keith Long: that do not yet require

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Keith Long: this type of training.

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Keith Long: so wherever it is you stand, I’m going to attempt to answer some of these.

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Keith Long: so that hopefully, by the end of this webinar.

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Keith Long: you’re ready to make an informed decision, or you’d least feel like you have some sort of a roadmap in a direction to go.

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Keith Long: So initially, while legal is often the focus here.

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Keith Long: There are many other important things left on the table when you don’t provide anti-harassment and discrimination prevention training.

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Keith Long: So let’s start with numbers. See 36% here on the screen.

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Keith Long: That is 36% of diverse workforces, that is workforces

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Keith Long: with a diverse employee group different background. Right? See a 36% higher likelihood of financially outperforming their peers.

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Keith Long: It’s important to note here that this type of training

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Keith Long: includes diversity

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Keith Long: as we talk about protected classes protected characteristics. 50%, 50% of companies who create an environment where employees feel psychologically safe.

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Keith Long: That’s typically by means of training awareness and policy.

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Keith Long: See an exact return, 50% more productivity.

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Keith Long: Right? So, when employees feel psychologically safe, that means that I’m feeling safe

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Keith Long: to come to work, be myself,

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Keith Long: contribute information, contribute ideas share amongst my coworkers, and I don’t feel like I’m going to be oppressed or treated unfairly.

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Keith Long: Simply for who I am or what I’m bringing to the table, right?

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Keith Long: 75% and 85%. So, 75% of women and 85% of men feel safer at work following anti-harassment training.

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Keith Long: and this often leads to lower absenteeism.

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Keith Long: Right, and I think that ties directly back into that psychological safety. If I feel

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Keith Long: like my employer wants to ensure the best for me. Then I’m going to feel safe going to work right?

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Keith Long: So, a lot of these, a lot of these tie together. But

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Keith Long: that’s just the numbers, right? So, let’s get away from what’s in it for you. right? So, it’s not just about your bottom line. The important focus here is creating that work environment where all employees feel safe.

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Keith Long: As a matter of fact, the EEOC

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Keith Long: says that workers in the United States have 5 basic rights when it comes to employment.

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Keith Long: So, per the EEOC employees have the right to work in a place that is free of discrimination and harassment.

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Keith Long: They have the right to complain about discrimination. They have the right to request workplace changes for things like religion, disability,

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Keith Long: medical conditions,

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Keith Long: pregnancy, childbirth.

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Keith Long: Additionally, they have the right to

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Keith Long: keep their medical information private.

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Keith Long: Now, HIPAA doesn’t necessarily fall into this type of training. We can begin to see the roadmap that the EEOC is laid out here in front of us as a guidance for what should be included in your training.

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Keith Long: And before we get too much further. Let’s address the problem with this naming convention of sexual harassment. And hopefully, you can already see that

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Keith Long: beginning to happen.

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Steve Kessler: Hey, Keith? Just to interrupt you for just a second. You know the topics you were just talking about.

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Steve Kessler: you know. Obviously, a lot of this could impact

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Steve Kessler: obviously turnover in a company, but also your recruiting efforts. I mean, do companies that really embrace this a recruiting message that they pronounce that they follow all these rules and regulations. I’m just curious if there’s any data on that.

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Keith Long: So not so much directly in that sense. But I’ll tell you where this reaches into on the recruiting end is that

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Keith Long: when you look at hiring language, right? That’s something that a manager has included in this type of training cause. There’s training for manager level employees. So, when you look at hiring language.

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Keith Long: Oddly enough,

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Keith Long: you know, there’s a lot of things that we’ve been doing over the years that we just accept as the norm. But

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Keith Long: times change and it’s important that we change along with them. So

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Keith Long: an easy one here to talk about is gender specific terms in hiring practices.

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Keith Long: Right? So, when we say,

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Keith Long: mailman, salesman,

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Keith Long: right waitress, hostess, those type of terms often deter

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Keith Long: potential applicants, and I forget the statistic here. I don’t have it right in front of me, but I think it’s some odd 65%

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Keith Long: higher application rate when you change your verbiage to you know,

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Keith Long: non gender specific. So that that postal worker or server you know, in the restaurant case. So, it’s amazing how far this reaches, not just from the day to day interaction of employees, but also

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Keith Long: those that would be coming into your company, because those employees have rights too. And that’s it actually goes further. There is that

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Keith Long: you also have to protect the rights of those that are applying for your company. Right? Those that have taken interest and began to or have begun to engage with you.

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Steve Kessler: That’s why I can see how important this is, because without knowledge, you may, without any

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Steve Kessler: intent, walk into something that could cause a big problem

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Keith Long: absolutely and you know, as a manager, and I think I’ve got that somewhere in here, too. You are responsible

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Keith Long: right for

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Keith Long: how you contribute to, or individuals can be held responsible for how they contribute to harassment, either intentional or

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Keith Long: negligently.

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Steve Kessler: Hmm.

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Keith Long: So, when it comes down again to the numbers as an employer. Right when we talk about

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Keith Long: what happens when we don’t embrace this type of training.

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Keith Long: So, when we focus on

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Keith Long: or we’re going to focus on the financial risks here initially. So, the EEOC has limitations on settlement amounts when it comes to cases filed with them for workplace harassment or discrimination charges.

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Keith Long: The court systems do not, though, so well as you can see here, for, you know, varying levels of employment, there are set amounts or limits for compensatory returns, you know, to plaintiffs.

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Keith Long: However,

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Keith Long: outside of the EEOC awards fall into the $40,000 to $200,000 range. However, one of the highest was 380 million dollars, right? And that was just in 2018.

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Keith Long: Well, another thing it pops into my mind, Keith, and I sorry I’m interrupting you here, but

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Steve Kessler: there’s also kind of a

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Steve Kessler: a cost associated with bad publicity, and word gets out about these kind of claims against the company. It seems like it’s hard to put a dollar amount on that. But there are other

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Steve Kessler: unseen or unrecognized costs here, too, I would think.

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Keith Long: yep, absolutely right if you think about the damage that it does to your company by limiting the amount of people that are going to apply the potential downturn in you know, employee job satisfaction overall when they don’t feel like their needs are being met when they don’t feel psychologically safe. We start to see.

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Keith Long: you know, application amounts go down. But we also start to see turnover

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Keith Long: rise. We start to see, you know,

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Keith Long: people seeking better employment, and especially in this day and age. People want to work somewhere where they feel safe. People want to work somewhere where they feel heard, right?

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Steve Kessler: Absolutely

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Keith Long: so. Additionally, it’s important to remember.

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Keith Long: said here that individuals can be held personally and financially liable for their actions and contributing to instances of harassment or discrimination, and that, like I said, either by direct choice or negligence. So, a great example of negligence would be not taking action to protect employees when they bring instances of harassment and discrimination to you.

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Keith Long: But you don’t know that you’re supposed to do anything about it, because your company is not provided training. So, you got a company that’s liable.

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Keith Long: and you’ve got an employee that’s liable right? And that’s

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Keith Long: so.

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Keith Long: It’s important to note here

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Keith Long: Federal regulations as we’ve talked about here. The EEOC protects employees or says that you know employees have the right to work and

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an environment free of harassment and discrimination.

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Keith Long: However, from the State side 23 States don’t have

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Keith Long: an anti-harassment or sexual harassment and discrimination law. So, the problem here is that even though your State may say that you don’t have to have training on it.

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Keith Long: Employees are still protected federally.

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Keith Long: So, if you have an incident at work, an employee can file a case with the EEOC.

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Keith Long: and you can still be held viable. So, you know, at its most basic here. But I guess what I want you to take away from this is that

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Keith Long: it is important that you have policy in place. It is important that you have training in place, because without it. You are leaving yourself open.

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Steve Kessler: Interesting.

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Keith Long: Now,

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Keith Long: again, should be said here. Settlements awarded, the victims in cases involving harassment, sexual harassment, discrimination,

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Keith Long: are not something that I’m saying

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Keith Long: you should mitigate here. I do believe that victims in these cases are absolutely do any and all mounts determined by final verdict. Right, these are serious claims. These are serious things that happen. Not only is this, you know,

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Keith Long: Damaging. I guess you could call it on a on a company level, but on a personal level for somebody. Instances of harassment, sexual harassment can change somebody’s life forever.

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Keith Long: So, it is my belief that companies who seek to provide a work environment free of harassment and discrimination for all employees, can avoid having situations in their workplace that would constitute that harassment or discrimination. So, you know,

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Keith Long: doing the right thing, taking that action and making sure that you, as a company, are providing this training, regardless of what your state and local regulations are, is,

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Keith Long: in my opinion one of the best things that you can do.

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Steve Kessler: Yeah, I mean, why not? If the training is available.

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make sure you’ve done it and provided it for everyone, you’ve documented it, and

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Steve Kessler: you’ve protected your company a great deal.

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Keith Long: absolutely absolutely.

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Keith Long: And the difference in between training and not training is that informed workforces often see less cases of harassment and discrimination, and in most cases in an informed workforce, they often do not escalate beyond the point of first interaction, because you have employees who know where to go.

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Keith Long: They know who to talk to. You have a proper policy and reporting structure for deterring and preventing harassment. And you’ve got an entire team that supports that culture.

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Keith Long: So, the first step toward eliminating and preventing harassment in your workplace is understanding the prevalence of it.

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Keith Long: So, fact here, while discrimination shouldn’t be present in any company. Over half 55% of workers say that they’ve experienced discrimination at their company.

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Keith Long: And then, according to a report by Glassdoor, 61% of employees have experienced or witnessed discrimination based on age, race, gender, or sexual orientation.

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Keith Long: all protecting characteristics.

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Steve Kessler: I would not have guessed it was that high. But

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Keith Long: oh, that’s an amazing statistic.

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Keith Long: Staggering right? It’s and this is where you know, like we said as we started here, it’s not something that we typically think about, we have to deal with and

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Keith Long: often you know what we hear most.

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Keith Long: the assumption that doesn’t happen in my,

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Keith Long: workforce that doesn’t happen in the industry, and that I’m in, or that would never happen at my company. But fact is it does, and it can.

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Steve Kessler: And those numbers are what’s been reported. That sort of thing. It happens that never gets brought up even by the victim.

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Keith Long: Correct, correct, and that can either be

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Keith Long: right. This and this kind of gets further into what these trainings really should be.

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Keith Long: but one of the biggest. There is fear of retaliation preventing people from reporting right. As an employer we have an obligation to protect our employees which

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Keith Long: includes protecting them from retaliation, either

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Keith Long: by the person who, you know committed their harassing behavior, or internally, right? So, there’s a lot there that falls into this.

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Keith Long: So, let’s talk about training inclusions. Now,

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Keith Long: while the EEOC lays out that roadmap for what should be included in a harassment and discrimination, prevention, training, effective, and memorable training goes beyond that. So

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Keith Long: if you set the EEOC requirements as a foundation for your training and then add additional important focuses, you’re gonna be well on your way to providing value added training.

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Keith Long: So,

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Keith Long: for example, here I’ve got 2 highlighted. You see, bias and workplace bullying so adding additional training on things that don’t necessarily constitute harassment, but could lead to harassment.

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Keith Long: Workplace, bullying a great example here. While name calling, and generally being a jerk is not illegal

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Keith Long: and does not constitute harassment, if left unchecked, could escalate to harassment.

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Keith Long: Right? So having training that additionally focuses on factors like this that we’ll call workplace civility is important because it does seek to foster that environment where employees feel safe at work.

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Keith Long: And to add to that, you might be surprised to learn that in the past couple of years.

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Keith Long: Legislature in 29 States have submitted an anti-workplace bullying bill. 29 States, so, while the face of this

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Keith Long: is

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Keith Long: ever changing right? Like I said, we, we start with that foundation that the EEOC puts in, and we build on top of that.

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Steve Kessler: Yeah. Keith, let me ask this. Is this

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Steve Kessler: activity between employees of the same company? Would this call come into play if an employee has done something to a customer or something like that, I mean, or is it just

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Keith Long: interior to your company and just your own employees? So that’s a fantastic point there. So,

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Keith Long: customers can absolutely file charges against employees.

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Keith Long: As a matter of fact,

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Keith Long: that 330

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Keith Long:  million dollar case from 2018 was the gymnastics instructor, and I don’t think we have to go too much further than that to really put into perspective. I think everybody remembers that, but

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Keith Long: in the adverse. As an employer, I also had to protect my employees

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Keith Long: from customers. Right? Absolutely right. If longtime customer Jim walks in and

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Keith Long: hits on our receptionist. You know our the answer can’t be well,

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Keith Long: he’s a good paying customer, right? That’s not supporting a workplace environment that’s free of harassment and discrimination. No, we. We have to take care of that, and we have to look out for the best interest of our employees, because if we go back to the costs

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Keith Long: of this. It may cost you more than that lost business.

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Keith Long: and may cost somebody emotionally, personally, more than your lost business.

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Steve Kessler: the consequences could be much more than

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Keith Long: revenue lost. Exactly.

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Keith Long: So, on top of training.

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Keith Long: Any company should have

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Keith Long: clear policy, right so no training would be complete without a strong and informative company policy behind it. So

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Keith Long: most States, where companies are required to provide anti-harassment and discrimination training are also required to provide policy regarding how to report harassment and discrimination in the workplace.

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Keith Long: a good policy in general should be looked at as a clear pathway to reporting

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Keith Long: harassment and discrimination. So, statement should

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Keith Long: say that it applies to every employee at every level of the organization. Nobody is above policy, right harassment based on at a minimum, any legal, protected characteristic is prohibited, and as we get into state requirements on on our next slide here.

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Keith Long: we’re going to talk about that, and how some of those are different from state-to-state policy should be easy to understand, not confusing

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Keith Long: right. We should also be available to explain this policy.

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Keith Long: So a statement that

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Keith Long: the policy applies to everyone at every level, easy to understand, description of the organization’s harassment and complete system, including

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Keith Long: multiple avenues of reporting.

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Keith Long: for example, how to report harassment to a director or manager, and additionally, how to report directly to HR. So, this can be for a number of reasons, but an important one there to note is that if an employee is being harassed by their direct manager, who do, they feel safe to go to.

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Steve Kessler: Right.

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Steve Kessler: You know that they been, you know, having the ability to trust who you’re gonna go talk to and have a sensitive ear to your issue.

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Steve Kessler: I think, is really important here.

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Keith Long: Absolutely and that’s why, in my opinion, this falls into safety.

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Keith Long: right and transportation. We are all about safety, and this is just another arm

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Keith Long: of being safe.

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Steve Kessler: Sure is.

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Keith Long: So, as for what your policy contains outside of a clear way or a clear pathway to reporting. I encourage you to sit down with your HR department and or legal team to determine what items need to be in there

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Keith Long: and these can really vary, of course, depending on your industry, your city, your state, and local requirements. So, you know, work with your team.

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Keith Long: but at the same time make sure that you’re aligning with the regulations per state and Federal.

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Steve Kessler: Make sense.

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Keith Long: So, this is an ever-growing list, and you’ll see 2 here, Chicago and New York City. So, 2 cities within the States that have additional training requirements.

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Keith Long: So

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Keith Long: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, and New York, all have statutes, for when it comes to this type of training, and so do Chicago, New York City.

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Keith Long: So, these can be additional time requirements. How often training should be provided.

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Keith Long: How soon after higher training should be provided. additional character protecting characteristics

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Keith Long: and even additional State and local reporting resources like Connecticut, has an additional reporting resource. The city of New York City has additional reporting resources for those who work in New York City proper same thing with Chicago. Chicago also requires 1 hour of bystander training.

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Keith Long: And not all states require that. So, knowing these things are important,

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Keith Long: you can find these on the EEOC website. A quick Google search on what is required in my State.

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Keith Long: you know. Try to stay away from no name,

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Keith Long: you know, search results. Pay attention to things like Sherm, the Society for Human Resources Management or the EEOC. Those are really gonna be those guiding lights when it comes down to it on what you need to provide or align with.

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Steve Kessler: That’s good information to know where to go, to learn about where you are and what’s required.

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Keith Long: Delivering training.

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Keith Long: So, now for those that are not in the transportation industry, it might be relatively easy to set up, you know. Set a group of employees down

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Keith Long: and get them in front of a computer or get them in front of an instructor and

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Keith Long: provide this training right? Provide policy in person, provide training in person, however, in the transportation world.

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Keith Long: trying to get training in front of employees, like drivers or yard workers, or anything like that, from varying schedules to.

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Keith Long: you know, varying locations. It can be like hitting a moving target.

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Keith Long: So that is why it’s ever more common that we start to see

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Keith Long: training provided on a digital platform. So

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Keith Long: companies like Infinit-I make that a lot easier that way. We can put the training into an employee’s hands. You said, either by

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Keith Long: via the web on a computer or via mobile app and then, additionally, you’re looking at completion tracking and certificates so that you can stay compliant because, depending on your state.

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Keith Long: you’re going to need these things to stay compliant. You’re going to need to keep them with the employees file.

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Keith Long: Now, hopefully, knock on wood here in the next month or 2 we’ll be able to provide that here with Infinit-I together, myself and Infinit-I have been working on this specific type of training

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Keith Long: that will work, depend, you know, regardless of what state you’re in, so that you can align with those guidelines, and that you can put this training into your employees pocket.

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Steve Kessler: yeah, Keith, it’s my understanding. I talked to our head of video production

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Steve Kessler: this morning, and they’re estimating somewhere between mid-December and mid-January that this content will be ready

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Steve Kessler: for the dissemination out to our current customers, and certainly available to anybody that’s

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Steve Kessler: thinking about getting their hands on it. We can certainly help you do that. As a matter of fact,

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Steve Kessler: got a little poll question here. If you have an interest in, learn a little bit more about our system, and how you can get access to the content. If you can just say yes or no

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Steve Kessler: to the poll. We’ll be happy to reach out to you and tell you what we have and how you can go about getting access to the content.

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Steve Kessler: So, leave this up here for a little bit and

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Steve Kessler: alright.

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Steve Kessler: Thank you all for that.

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Steve Kessler: Wait a little bit longer. Sorry, either. I’m interrupting you here. No, no, you’re good. hey, Keith? I got a question while the polls up there.

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Steve Kessler: Would you suggest, I think it would be important that this would be part of a new employee orientation.

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Steve Kessler: that the training would take place day one and would you suggest that we obviously you wanna catch up if there’s something you’ve never done to catch up your other employees? But

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Steve Kessler: obviously, would it make sense to be a training that you would repeat annually, or

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Steve Kessler: does that make sense?

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Keith Long: It does, from an onboarding standpoint. Well. States say, you know, you’ve got 50 days you’ve got 3 months. You’ve got 6 months depending on the state you’re operating in

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Keith Long: One of the best things that you can do is start that on day one right where we start out instilling proper company values and on top of that we tie that to a person’s

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Keith Long: annual employment date right or their anniversary. So, it’s easier to keep track of for your compliance team.

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Keith Long: And then I mean, if you’ve got something learning management system like Infinit-I?

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Keith Long: Why not set an assignment that starts a year out or 2 years out with that training in there, so that when it happens it’s in their classroom and they’re ready to go right. It’s a little bit little bit less management, or, you know, follow up on on your end.

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Keith Long: But I will say, with most states.

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Keith Long: when providing

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Keith Long: training on a you know, on a digital platform, or even providing training in person.

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Keith Long: You still need to have company policy, right? You still need to have that made available to your employees. So

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Keith Long: training can only go.

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Keith Long: so far right and training, of course, is a requirement in in many States right now. But beyond that, be sure that you’re also providing clear and concise policy to your employees in their hands. So they know their reporting structure, and they know what to do in the event of harassment and discrimination, and they know their rights.

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Steve Kessler: Yeah, we’ve got a couple of really good comments here, Keith. Kelly’s saying they use a I guess it’s a software called Paylocity.

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Steve Kessler: and it includes as part of their usual training schedule. So, they’re already including that in their training, which is great to hear and Sharon is saying they have anti-harassment training during new hire orientation and annually during open enrollment meetings.

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Keith Long: I think those are really good suggestions. Thank you all for

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Steve Kessler: commenting on that, because

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I think

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Steve Kessler: you know everybody can share their ideas, how they’ve been going about doing it and make it a regular part of bringing on new people, and how you train all your employees.

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Steve Kessler: Once you have the information. It’s not that difficult to get it out there everybody.

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Keith Long: Absolutely that’s correct and it’s

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Keith Long: you know, like I said in the beginning and I’ve said multiple times through this, it comes down to

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Keith Long: providing that environment where employees feel safe at work. It comes down to safety like the number said before, they’re, you know, 75% and 85%

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Keith Long: feel safer at work

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Keith Long: after this type of training, right? So

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Keith Long: lower, turnover.

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Keith Long: more applicants. Better applicants.

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Keith Long: You know, we talk about diversity and diversified workforces. Overall brings better ideas to the table.

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You know, is more profitable when it comes to the company’s bottom line. But

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Keith Long: you know, you really do start to build psychological safety in and of your work, environment.

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Keith Long: and that’s really what we should all be going to work to right. Nobody should have to get up in the morning and fear the place that they’re going into or clocking into. Right

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Steve Kessler: You know work has enough its own challenges to add something like that in on top of it so, and I can’t imagine you get the kind of productivity out of an employee if they’re living with that sort of thing hanging over their head, or the dread of like you said of going to work.

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Steve Kessler: We have another comment here, real quick. I don’t want to ignore our guests out there. John said

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Steve Kessler: they have a policy in their employee handbook, and then do the training upon hire and annually through their general employee LMS, so

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Steve Kessler: I think that’s exactly the kind of procedure that we would like everybody to embrace.

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Keith Long: Correct, correct, and there is nothing wrong with, you know, if you operate in multiple states, some States say every 2 years, some say every year there is nothing wrong with doing it every year regardless of the States you operate in.

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Keith Long: You just want to be sure that you are adhering to state specific policies, for where your employees operate out of as a home location. Right? So, if I’ve got that Chicago employee, if I’ve got that California employee, I need to be sure that the training is fitting to that that location.

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Steve Kessler: Absolutely.

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Keith Long: So,

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Keith Long: resources here, like I said before, the Society for Human Resource management, the EEOC not only when we say lays the roadmap for employee rights you can also go to their website and search protected characteristics and get a list of characteristics protected by law as well as additional characteristics protected by State

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Keith Long: and then they also have guidelines for how to create an effective company policy and what should be included.

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Keith Long: OSHA as well. I mean, we’ve all got an OSHA board where we work. That’s a requirement, right? But along with that is, is

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Keith Long: employee rights in the workplace, and they as well have a guiding document for these kind of things. So, you’ve got resources out there whether it’s Infinit-I whether it’s the transportation nerd or whether it’s these resources you see here on your screen. Ultimately, again, what it comes down to is being safe and feeling safe.

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Steve Kessler: Fantastic information. Keith.

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Steve Kessler: I did! There was one other comment. Somebody said they are also adding, DEI specific training as an annual requirement. So,

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Keith Long: seems like, we’ve got some folks that have joined us here that

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Steve Kessler: see the importance of this topic, and I’m hoping that the other folks that have joined this

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Steve Kessler: realize that it’s pretty important to add this as part of how you train on board and

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Steve Kessler: keep your employees.

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Keith Long: Correct. Correct. And yeah, DEI, for anybody that’s not familiar. Diversity, equity, and inclusion is becoming an ever more

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Keith Long: common term in the workplace, and that

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Keith Long: that’s a very positive thing.

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Steve Kessler: Yup, that’s good to hear. Great to hear.

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Steve Kessler: If anybody else has questions or anything out there for Keith feel free to

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Steve Kessler: type them in the chat or Keith, I hope it was okay. I put your email up here on the screen.

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Keith Long: So, if you have a question, Keith is very much an expert about this, or you can reach out to me

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Steve Kessler: at my email there, and I’ll if I don’t know the answer, I’ll certainly know who to go to get the answer.

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Steve Kessler: But Keith, thank you very much. It’s been one of the more informative programs we’ve had in a while. And I think it’s

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Steve Kessler: was a very important topic. And I’m hoping we’ve kind of opened some eyes up here and make sure that people are aware of this and paying attention and doing the right thing.

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Keith Long: Yep, absolutely. Thanks for having me. You know it’s something that that I’m very passionate about, and I hope that everybody listening shares that as a common core value. So

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Steve Kessler: thanks again, Steve, he thank you all very much. I don’t see any other questions here, so thank you all for attending the webinar today. We appreciate you taking some of your time to be here and watch your inbox on your email for more invitations to webinars that we got coming up in the future. So, Keith once again. Thank you, sir, very much and

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Steve Kessler: thank you all for joining us, and we’ll see you next time.

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Keith Long: Thanks. All right. Bye, everyone.