Starting this year, newly hired employees at Eastern will now have to complete their training on sexual harassment prevention within 30 days.

Shawn Peoples, interim director of the Office of Civil Rights and Diversity, said Eastern has ethics training already in place for all employees.

Before, there was no specific timeline for when the training needed to be done.

“Something new that has changed is the amendment of the Ethics Act, which came out of the state’s Office of the Executive Inspector General,” Peoples said. “It states that all new employees must complete the training within 30 days.”

Another change to the training is that all employees must now complete it every year.

The training itself is the same, just with a different timeline.

“I think we do really well with our training program,” Peoples said. “It’s online training, and Eastern says in the training, employees must have definitions of sexual harassment, how to report sexual harassment, information about retaliation and the penalties that could happen because of a complaint that comes through.”

If someone is convicted of sexual harassment, it could result in fines, additional training and disciplinary action from their department.

“The Office of Civil Rights and Diversity is one way to report sexual harassment,” Peoples said. “We have an online complaint form that is accessible via our website. Someone can also come in and fill out a form as well, individuals can also report to the Illinois Department of Human Rights, to the Executive Ethics Commission or the Office of Inspector General, so these are some outside, within-the-state ways individuals can report as well.”

Peoples said employees will get a certificate when completing the training.

Employees must submit their certificate to the Office of Civil Rights so it will be on record.

If an employee does not have access to a computer, the Office of Civil Rights has a paper booklet they can come in and complete.

Vince Lovergine can be reached at 581-2812 or vplovergine@eiu.edu.