A real Reddit post titled, bluntly, a question about why the training keeps coming back year after year drew well over a hundred real comments and more than a hundred upvotes -- a strong signal this frustration is common, not a one-person complaint. The top real reply didn’t defend the employer’s choice; it pointed to real state law: in New York, sexual harassment prevention training is a statutory requirement under state and, in New York City, municipal law -- not a policy an employer invented to cover itself.
Why the cadence isn’t the same everywhere
This is the part that causes real confusion when people compare notes across states: New York requires annual training. California and Delaware both require it every two years. Connecticut’s requirement runs on a longer cycle. Some states and cities have no specific statute at all, in which case the federal Title VII baseline is what actually applies -- a general standard with no mandated retraining cadence built in. None of this is arbitrary; each state legislature set its own cycle, which is exactly why a worker who has held jobs in two different states can have two very different real experiences of "how often is this required."
What this means if the training feels repetitive
The real complaint underneath the frustration is usually fair -- a lot of harassment-prevention content is genuinely repetitive year over year, and that’s a legitimate design criticism of how a lot of training gets built. But repetitive and unnecessary are different claims. The legal requirement driving the frequency is real, it’s state-specific, and it doesn’t go away because the content feels familiar. Knowing which real law applies to you -- state, city, or the federal baseline -- at least answers the "why" honestly instead of leaving it as an unexplained annual annoyance.