NEW DELHI: Earlier this month, an anonymous mail drafted and circulated by a bunch of women employees at information technology major Infosys levelled serious charges of harassment against a senior executive.
Infosys did not comment on the issue in a response to queries by ET, but said this in an email: “We take every sexual harassment complaint very seriously and each case is thoroughly and expeditiously investigated. Swift and appropriate action is taken in all such cases. Keeping in view the privacy aspects we do not share particulars of individual cases.”
A few months ago, a senior leader in operations at a large multinational bank was sacked after repeated complaints of harassment and favouritism by multiple women colleagues. “The management should have been more cautious, and he should have been given a red alert the first time,” says a member of the bank’s diversity council on condition of anonymity.
A year after the law on Prevention of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace was enacted and notified with the aim of creating better and safer workplaces for women, India Inc is still grappling with the intricacies and challenges of dealing with harassment and gender sensitisation.
A spokesperson for West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences Kolkata cited a study conducted by International Labour Organisation early this year, which estimates that over 90% of Indian businesses are unable to comply with the new law. Even as employee awareness campaigns and training workshops are under way in companies both big and small, the number of reported harassment cases have gone up, but so have the number of malicious complaints.
In an Ernst & Young report titled, ‘The Whistle-Blowing Quandary’, which came out in August 2014, around 56% of respondents stated that less than 25% of complaints reported need further investigation. “This indicates the high constitution of irrelevant complaints that get reported through these avenues,” says Arpinder Singh, partner and national leader, fraud investigation and dispute services at Ernst & Young.
Mumbai-headquarterd Advaya Legal — a full service commercial law firm which advises companies on structuring harassment policies and has its partners as members in internal complaints committees — has, over the past year, investigated cases linked to sexual advances being made by a male colleague at a junior female colleague at an office party, unwelcome physical contact being made by a senior colleague at a female colleague at a private dinner. Advaya also dealt with a case wherein a complainant tried to misuse the law to settle personal scores after a poor performance appraisal.
“Cases linked to harassment have gone up over the past year,” says Sharanya Ranga, partner at Advaya Legal. But she adds, at times especially in cases where the respondent is in a senior position, complainants ignore behaviour that causes them discomfort. “There’s a tendency to ‘not make an issue’ so long as it does not spill over into physical contact or advances,” she says. There’s also an innate fear among women about proving their complaint with documentary evidence or witnesses as most cases happen in private spaces, she adds.
CORPORATE EFFORT
Companies on their part are trying to sensitise employees on what constitutes harassment. The Godrej Group has begun to roll out a series of gender sensitisation workshops, which touch upon a wide variety of issues including raising awareness about employees’ rights to protect them from sexual harassment at the workplace or outside.
Whirlpool is also in the process of launching gender sensitisation workshops across levels. At Maruti Suzuki, a one-hour special capsule on the anti-sexual harassment policy is now a part of the new joinee induction programme. “It’s for both men and women who join the company and outlines the law, explains the complete structure and also sensitises on the confidentiality aspect, which are critical in such cases. The session explains all the steps to address the situation,” says SY Siddiqui, chief mentor.
Legal services provider Rainmaker has developed a corporate training product called Worksafe for companies in June this year. Through online videos and enacted case scenarios by actors, discussion forums and live chats, Work safe explains what constitutes harassment to employees and tests them through quizzes followed by a self certification. Worksafe is currently being used in banks, IT companies, BPOs and manufacturing companies.
“The definition of workplace has been widely defined under the new law to include contract labour, and even customers walking into a bank, and that has stunned companies. If a company has fewer women in its workforce, it becomes all the more imperative to train employees in gender sensitisation,” says Anthony Alex, CEO, Rainmaker.
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