TAIPEI—The sexual-assault scandal at Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. that spurred a backlash online about workplace culture is driving other Chinese companies to confront, or create, their own policies on sexual harassment.

Following the allegations in early August, Shanghai-based online travel platform operator Trip.com Group Ltd. said it adopted a code of conduct against sexual harassment. iQiyi Inc., a Netflix-like video streaming company, updated its codes of conduct to explicitly oppose sexual harassment, according to an internal email viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Sina Corp., which operates the Twitter-like microblogging platform Weibo, added similar measures to its employee handbook, according to Chinese media.

Sina and iQiyi didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, consulting firms said they have fielded an influx of queries from Chinese companies seeking help on anti-sexual harassment training and corporate policies.

Alibaba announced steps to prevent sexual harassment, such as a zero-tolerance policy and regular training, after a female employee accused a co-worker of sexual assault and claimed that other managers mishandled her complaints. The accused employee was fired, and two managers resigned.

The e-commerce giant said it is institutionalizing positive workplace measures including establishing a team dedicated to examining and eradicating inappropriate workplace behavior reported by employees.

The accusations, in which the accuser said she was forced to drink heavily on a business trip and then was assaulted by both her manager and a client, spread quickly on social media and sparked a firestorm of public criticism. They also highlighted the lack of codified recourse for many employees experiencing sexual harassment, including at China’s largest and most well-known companies.

“It was definitely a wake-up call,” said Jill Tang, co-founder of the Shanghai-based organization Ladies Who Tech, which promotes gender diversity in China’s tech industry. “It caused a lot of discussion and made a lot of companies realize they don’t have even a basic setup” for dealing with such complaints.

iQiyi, a video-streaming service in China, announced changes to its employee handbook and said it opposes ‘unspoken rules’—a euphemism for sexual harassment at the workplace.

Photo: VCG/Getty Images

Chinese laws against sexual harassment in the workplace are relatively nascent. An article in China’s new civil code, which went into effect at the start of the year, stipulates that companies and other workplaces should take reasonable measures to prevent sexual harassment.

However, the code lacks specific penalties for companies that don’t comply, which could challenge widespread adoption and enforcement of such policies, said Darius Longarino, senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center. “The law with regards to employer liability for sexual harassment is quite vague, and thus, weak,” he said.

The Alibaba accusations and subsequent backlash sent many companies scrambling to adopt more stringent rules and training against sexual harassment.

iQiyi sent out a letter to its employees and interns in mainland China on Aug. 13 to announce the changes in its employee handbook, and said the company “firmly opposes” any harmful “unspoken rules”—a euphemism for sexual harassment at the workplace.

With the nine rules iQiyi added, the company specifically forbids any form of harassment, and encourages employees to come forward and report inappropriate or harmful behavior. Penalties for breaking each of the rules are listed in a separate internal document.

Trip.com announced its code of conduct against sexual harassment in an Aug. 16 email to its China team; it featured the mascot, a cartoon dolphin, encouraging employees to oppose sexual harassment, whether in the form of speech, electronic message, text, photo or physical contact.

A spokeswoman for Trip.com said the policy is to ensure that employees feel safe at work and can come forward with any concerns.

Labours, a Chinese consulting firm that advises companies on issues related to labor law and management, said several major tech companies in China have reached out since the Alibaba scandal broke, seeking advice on how human resources should handle sexual assault claims.

EnGender, an organization that offers consulting services including on sexual harassment, has received more than 2,000 inquiries in the past few weeks, according to co-founder Shaw Wang. He said that compares with about three to five inquiries every month before the Alibaba scandal.

Mr. Wang estimated that about half of companies reaching out to EnGender don’t have policies against sexual harassment. For those that do have them, they could be included in a code of conduct or labor contract but often aren’t very specific, he said.

The challenge for companies is to ensure initial efforts translate into sustained action, he added.

Some employees at companies including Pinduoduo Inc., Xiaomi Corp. and Tencent Music Entertainment Group said they have recently received reminders from managers about antiharassment rules. An employee on Pinduoduo’s marketing team said her manager asked the team to handle business relationships with clients, partners and suppliers carefully, and report any wrongdoings internally to management. Meanwhile, a Xiaomi employee said that during a recent team meeting, a manager brought up the Alibaba scandal and asked team members to be careful and not let similar things happen in their team.

Pinduoduo, Tencent Music and Xiaomi didn’t respond to requests for comment.

On Chinese social media, an online post by an intern at Tencent Holdings Ltd. went viral after he shared screenshots of his messages to Tencent founder Pony Ma and President Martin Lau asking them to address issues of sexual harassment. Mr. Lau responded, saying that while Tencent is very different from Alibaba, he would forward the request to the company’s human resources division, which was implementing related measures.

A Tencent spokesperson said it doesn’t tolerate harassment of any kind, including sexual harassment, and has long-established channels for employees to share concerns confidentially.

—Qianwei Zhang and Raffaele Huang contributed to this article.

Write to Stephanie Yang at stephanie.yang@wsj.com