Labor & Employment Practice Group Chair, Rachel Bossard, Summarizes End of the Year Employment Law Compliance

As 2023 comes to a close, Illinois employers must be mindful of their compliance requirements and best practices to minimize or eliminate legal risk. If your company has not already complied with the state and local laws regarding harassment prevention training for your employees, you must do so by December 31, 2023.

Illinois Employers

The Illinois Workplace Transparency Act, which amended the Illinois Human Rights Act (“IHRA”), requires all Illinois employers to provide one hour of sexual harassment prevention training at least once a year to all employees (including interns, short-time or part-time workers) with sexual harassment prevention training that complies with section 2-109 of the IHRA.

Chicago Employers

The Chicago Human Rights Ordinance requires almost all employers with one or more employees in the City of Chicago to provide at least one hour of sexual harassment preventing training (or two hours for employees who have supervisor or managerial roles) and one hour of “bystander” training.

This means virtually all employees located in Chicago must complete at least two hours of harassment prevention training, which includes one hour of bystander training. It also means that all Chicago-based employees in a supervisory role must complete three hours of harassment prevention training annually.

Accordingly, if your company is not yet in compliance for 2023, there is still time to complete the employee trainings by the end of the year.

OTHER IMPORTANT AREAS OF COMPLIANCE

 In addition, it is a best practice to conduct regular HR compliance by reviewing your other employment-related documents on a regular basis. Documents such as Employee Handbooks, Employment Agreements, Severance Agreements, and restrictive covenants, like Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Agreements, routinely become outdated and unenforceable. This is due to constantly changing federal and state laws that govern these documents. Thus, the end of the year is a good time to evaluate when your documents were most recently updated.

For additional information on these compliance matters, please contact Rachel E. Bossard or any of the attorneys in the Labor & Employment Practice Group at Burke Warren:  312-840-7029 or rbossard@burkelaw.com.