Mayor Muriel Bowser signed a new executive order Tuesday that would expand the definition her administration uses to investigate sexual harassment between D.C. government employees, aligning with a 2022 local law. It would also prohibit romantic or sexual relationships between supervisors and their employees or employees and interns, although people currently in relationships may request permission to continue.

D.C. government officials said in a meeting with the press Tuesday that the order has been “many months” in the making, and that the administration has learned from experience since the mayor’s original sexual harassment order was released in 2017. Notably, the mayor’s latest update to policies comes after pressure from the D.C. Council and others following a sexual harassment scandal involving one of the mayor’s longtime senior aides, John Falcicchio. Falcicchio was found to have sexually harassed two lower-level employees.

The order released Tuesday expands the definition of sexual harassment by saying conduct “need not be severe or pervasive to constitute harassment” and “no specific number of incidents or specific level of egregiousness is required.” The previous order set a higher bar for what may be considered sexual harassment. An official said the mayor’s Office of Legal Counsel used the expanded definition when investigating accusations against Falcicchio.

The latest order also discourages unwanted physical touch, citing the example of an employee who hugs people in greeting may be warned they are acting inappropriately. While the conduct may not rise to the level of sexual harassment, the order says it could constitute misconduct since some employees may take offense to unsolicited hugs.

The order also bans dating, romantic and sexual relationships in the workplace to “prevent real or perceived impropriety, favoritism, conflicts of interest due to power dynamics.” This applies to supervisors and “any employee in the chain of command they supervise.” Individual agencies will determine the chain of command, an official said. Employees also cannot romantically or sexually fraternize with trainees, recruits, or interns in the same agency. The previous order did not prohibit these types of relationships, just “strongly discouraged” them.

D.C. government employees must disclose existing relationships that violate the order by Dec. 8. Adjustments can be made, like transfers, if the couple makes a request to the mayor via a waiver form created by the Department of Human Resources and it is approved.

The mayor last updated the local government’s sexual harassment policies in December 2017, amid the #MeToo movement, which brought awareness to harassment and abuse, particularly from powerful men. The previous order defined what sexual harassment is, as well as created processes for reporting and investigating complaints. In addition to reporting to the city’s Office of Human Rights, government employees have been instructed to submit their complaints to a designated “sexual harassment officer” within any government agency. An official said there is no vacancies among agency officers and adjustments will be made to ensure there aren’t any if an officer is undergoing training.

The new order also goes into more detail about what the reporting and investigation process would look like. It starts with the sexual harassment officer looking into a complaint and then making recommended determinations to the agency director on whether allegations can be substantiated, although they are not determining any legal conclusions. The order also seeks to better train sexual harassment officers and better communicate these policies to D.C. government employees. For example, the order requires annual sexual harassment training as opposed to every other year.

The order also creates a new task force that will meet from “time to time” to develop and advise on trainings and make recommendations about policies. The task force will include various government representatives, including from the Office of Human Rights and Office of Legal Counsel. They have already been tasked with providing a report on the government’s communications of these policies to employees, plus other items.

Lawmakers and others are still calling for more reforms over the Falcicchio scandal. The council passed an emergency bill ordering the city’s inspector general to review the investigation and look into other workplace culture issues. However, that effort has largely stalled. Federal and local law enforcement have also been looking into Falcicchio’s conduct, but he has yet to be criminally charged.

The Bowser administration had told the Washington Post earlier in October the mayor would be updating her sexual harassment order. The Post undertook an investigation into sexual harassment complaints since Bowser’s first sexual harassment order was issued in 2017, finding about 40 percent of roughly 300 complaints were unsubstantiated or found inconclusive. That included instances where investigators believed the alleged conduct occurred, the Post reports, but didn’t believe it violated the mayor’s order.  The Post noted the order’s relatively narrow definition of sexual harassment could have led to inconsistent enforcement.