The employer has the responsibility to educate their employees on acceptable behaviour in the workplace. The responsibilities are a little bit different under part II than under part III, so I'll present them separately.
Under part II, the occupational health and safety component, in accordance with the violence prevention regulations, all employees in a workplace unit must receive training from their employer in any skills that would allow them to identify, prevent, or avoid any workplace violence. That can include sexual harassment, as I mentioned earlier.
The employer must provide employees with the information, the guidelines, and the training at least every three years, as a minimum. That's in the legislation.
Training and education are essential when we strive to have a workplace that is free from violence and sexual harassment.
Under part III, the employer is responsible for providing a workplace that's free from sexual harassment. I defined that earlier in my presentation. The employer has to make every reasonable effort to maintain a workplace that is free of sexual harassment, and that often involves ensuring through their policy that they can provide the right information and the right training to their employees.
With respect to what the labour program's responsibilities are, we provide education and counselling to the federally regulated employers, either upon an employee's request to do so or as part of our duty to inspect the workplaces. During our inspections, the officers will explain the requirements of the regulations, and will share the available tools, such as pamphlets, which can provide an overview of the provisions in question. In some instances, we have what we call IPGs, interpretation, policies and guidelines documents. If we have them, these are brought to the attention of the employer to comply with.
As an example, under violence prevention, the labour program has created a guide, which is on our website and which I'll be happy to provide a link to, that is meant to assist employers, members of a policy or workplace committee, and health and safety representatives in preventing violence in the workplace. The guide outlines very practical procedures, almost like a step-by-step of how to comply with the requirements of the code, so that they can follow those instructions in implementing the prescribed steps for the prevention of violence. It includes the step of providing employee training and education.