“Farm Focused” Sexual Harassment Prevention Training

A team of Cornell Cooperative Extension educators recently adapted New York State’s model sexual harassment prevention training materials to be more relevant to the farm workplace. NY State DOL reviewed these materials to be sure they meet the content requirements and now they are ready for release. You will find both a presentation that teaches about sexual harassment and set of case studies that illustrate it in more detail. The presentation and case studies are available in English and Spanish and in PowerPoint or video format. You can use the PowerPoints as visual aids if you choose to do the presentation and review the case studies yourself. Or, you can show the video recordings of the presentation and case studies to train your farm employees.

We developed a comprehensive farm sexual harassment prevention resource page on the Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development website. The site contains a step-by-step guide to help a farm business meet New York’s requirements for employer sexual harassment prevention policies and training. Find the new resources under Step 5.

A few reminders as you prepare for the training:

1. Treat it seriously. You could have someone in your workforce experiencing harassment right now.
2. Customize your policy for your farm and put it in place before you do the training.
3. Customize the “Sexual Harassment Prevention Poster/Notice” and distribute copies to your employees at the training.
4. Be sure that you include an interactive portion such as a question and answer session, or brief feedback survey with your employees. You can pause the videos to create opportunities for interactive questions and discussion.
5. Document your training activities.
6. All New York employers are required to complete the training each year with all employees. The due date for this first time is October 9, 2019!

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By Richard Stup, Cornell University. Permission granted to repost, quote, and reprint with author attribution.
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