🚫 Workplace sexual harassment prevention training
Sexual harassment prevention training has the broadest scope of any statutory mandatory training. Unless you are a one-person business, you must provide it regardless of size, and since the 2018 law amendment the employer (CEO) is also required to attend.
Inspectors check not only whether training was held, but also whether the content covered the statutory topics and whether it was posted. Training that was just a video played and finished is where problems arise.
Legal requirements at a glance
Basis: Act on Equal Employment and Support for Work-Family Reconciliation, Article 13 · Enforcement Decree of the same Act, Article 3 · Fines, Article 39
| Audience | Every business that employs workers (1 or more). Only businesses where just live-in relatives work, and households employing only domestic workers, are excluded. The employer must also attend, and fixed-term and part-time workers are included. |
|---|---|
| Frequency | At least once a year |
| Training hours | The law sets no minimum number of hours. When you outsource to a designated training provider, the provider must offer a program of at least 1 hour, so in-house training is usually set at 1 hour as well. |
| Training methods | Employee workshops, morning meetings, staff meetings, online cyber training, and so on. Methods where delivery is hard to verify, such as simply handing out or posting materials, or ending with an email or bulletin board notice, do not count as training. |
| Simplified training | Workplaces with fewer than 10 regular employees, or where the employer and all employees are of the same gender, may comply by posting or distributing materials that cover the four statutory topics. |
| Posting requirement | Keep the training content posted or available at all times in a place where employees can freely read it. |
| Fines | The standard fines are KRW 5 million (≈ US$3,740) for not providing the training, KRW 5 million (≈ US$3,740) for not posting the training content (the same amount regardless of how many times you have violated), and KRW 2 million (≈ US$1,500) for not keeping records. |
| Record keeping | Keep documents that show the training was held for 3 years (electronic documents are allowed). |
| External instructor · outsourcing | Outsourcing to a designated training provider is optional. The employer may bring in an outside instructor and deliver the training directly, and there are no instructor qualification requirements. When outsourcing, you must tell the provider your internal handling and grievance counseling procedures in advance so they are included in the training. |
What the training must cover
The Enforcement Decree sets four. If any are missing, the session is hard to treat as statutory training even if you fill the hours.
- Laws on workplace sexual harassment
- The procedure and standards for handling workplace sexual harassment when it occurs at the workplace
- Grievance counseling and remedy procedures for affected employees at the workplace
- Other matters needed to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace
Common points of confusion
The CEO must attend too — an employer who skips the training is also in violation. Executives and CEOs are the ones most easily left out, and questions about separate training for affiliate CEOs come up often.
Emailing materials is not training — unless you qualify for the simplified method (fewer than 10 employees, or all of one gender), sending materials by email or putting them on a bulletin board does not count as training.
Separate sessions for senior staff — managers and executives are often trained in a separate session that covers both the risk of becoming a perpetrator and their responsibility for handling cases. It includes time to review your company’s actual case-handling documents.
You can combine it with harassment prevention — the most common format is 1 hour of sexual harassment prevention followed by 1 hour of harassment prevention in the same sitting. Keep a separate sign-in sheet for each subject.
What official statistics show
Official national statistics, shown with their source and reference year. Figures are based on each survey’s respondents and update automatically when a new survey is released.
In the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family’s Sexual Harassment Survey (2024), among workers who said the prevention training was not effective, 40.1% cited “the same content every time” and 27.4% cited “people don’t really listen because it’s online.”
Source: Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, Sexual Harassment Survey · KOSIS National Statistical Portal
In the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family’s Sexual Harassment Survey (2024), 48.3% of organization and company managers named “finding time for training” and 33.7% named “too few training formats” as difficulties in prevention training (sum of 1st–3rd choices).
Source: Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, Sexual Harassment Survey · KOSIS (Korean Statistical Information Service)
When Nanum Consulting delivers it
Nanum Consulting delivers this subject on-site at workplaces nationwide as the Workplace Sexual Harassment Prevention Training course. We build it around the four statutory topics plus your company’s case-handling procedure and grievance counseling channel, and we design separate sessions for managers and executives focused on their duty to act.
We offer both on-site delivery at your workplace and live Zoom sessions. After the training, you receive a sign-in sheet for each subject, the training materials, and a summary for posting.
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Sexual harassment prevention training alone is KRW 1 million (≈ US$750) based on 2 hours. Adding 1 hour of harassment prevention is still KRW 1 (≈ US$1) million, so most clients combine them.
Sexual harassment prevention — FAQ
How many hours of workplace sexual harassment prevention training are required?
Does the CEO also have to attend sexual harassment prevention training?
We only have 5 employees. Is sharing a video enough?
How much is the fine if we skip sexual harassment prevention training?
View other mandatory training
Legal basis · Sources
- Act on Equal Employment and Support for Work-Family Reconciliation, Article 13 (Korea Law Information Center)
- Enforcement Decree of the same Act, Article 3 (Workplace Sexual Harassment Prevention Training)
- Same Act, Article 39 (Fines)
The governing law, who is covered, hours, and fines may vary by workplace size, industry, and legal amendments. This page is general information to aid understanding. Please check the relevant laws and your local Ministry of Employment and Labor office to confirm how they apply to your workplace. .