Why is POSH Training Required?

With the rising number of women professionals in the workplace, it is necessary to take steps to protect their interests. Offering transportation and flexible working hours are one way of ensuring their safety. However, they also need to be safeguarded against sexual harassment. Hence, organizations must conduct training programs for all employees to sensitize them about gender issues.

Who needs POSH Training in India?

POSH training is important for managers, directors, business owners, IC members, HR-heads, legal professionals and employees. The training helps in spreading awareness among working professionals teaching them not only about the law but also the punishments associated with such acts.

The PoSH (Prevention of Sexual harassment Act) law seeks to empower women to fight against sexual harassment at workplace. Over the years, Prevention of Sexual Harassment (PoSH) Act has helped many women in getting justice for the cases of sexual harassment they have faced in the workplace.

However, it has also become a threatening tool for some women to extort money from their organisation’s management through malicious PoSH complaints. There is sometimes a lack of awareness among employees which can lead to unwanted cases of sexual misconduct.

Also, many organisations do not know how to set up a proper PoSH complaint redressal system or constitute the Internal Complaints Committee. Hiring an external member for the internal complaints committee is also an issue that organisations frequently face. The solution to all these problems lies in PoSH training of employees and management of the organisation through a professional legal firm.

Conducting PoSH training sessions for employees must be made mandatory so that the employees understand the consequences of sexual misconduct and what acts constitute sexual harassment. This will help in creating a more secure and tension-free environment for women at the workplace.

How to deliver PoSH training?

Sexual harassment is a serious topic and must be dealt sensitively without making anybody uncomfortable. There are many workshops that are conducted by government bodies and NGOs who work to help victims of sexual harassment. You can also conduct workshops in a face-to-face classroom-style training in your organization.

The only drawback to this style of training is that if you have a large number of employees in your organization, arranging training workshops for every employee at a particular time might prove tedious. Some people might miss out on the training. Keeping a track of employees who’ve attended, ensuring everyone has taken a test in the end and evaluation of the test could become hard to manage exercise.

A better and far more manageable alternative to live workshops would be to deliver one-to-one training on a mobile device. Mobile-based training delivery is anyway being practiced in almost every organization. So, employees are familiar with this kind of training structure. By delivering PoSH training on mobile devices, you can ensure that every employee has undergone a training program.

You can also view their test results and evaluate them in an organized manner and provide immediate feedback. So, it is better for organizations to deliver PoSH training on mobile devices. With appropriate training, you can create a healthy work environment where employees feel safe and are respectful towards each other.

How PoSH Training Helps?

Conducting PoSH training of employees helps them to get aware of their rights under the PoSH Act.
This helps women to come out and report any sexual misconduct from a colleague or a senior in the workplace and so, ensures a safe working environment.
PoSH Training also enables employees to learn about fake PoSH complaints or what can be categorised as malicious complaints. This can reduce no. of false or fake complaints in the organisation.
Proper PoSH training for management makes them aware of the process to create a robust and effective complaint redressal system.
It also helps the management to set up an internal complaints committee.

Shivani Madan Bose

Director, Proud HR Services