Getting POSH Compliance Right, Not Just On Paper

An organization with a hundred employees that forms an internal committee for the first time believes that having three members appointed will suffice. The organization later finds out that the POSH Act requires a certain kind of constitution, and that a committee formed without an external member who has genuine subject-matter expertise is one whose proceedings can be disregarded at the slightest challenge. There is another organization with an established POSH policy in place for many years; it is curious to find out whether the policy still holds the current legal standards, or whether the policy has been written once and never revised since. An HR manager trying to respond to her organization’s very first POSH inquiry wants to know not only the procedural aspects of conducting a proceeding, but how to conduct it fairly so that the decision will stand in case of any future challenge. The organization that has never failed in submitting their annual POSH documentation is still in doubt if they could stand an audit of their record keeping system wonders whether its record-keeping would actually survive an audit. The organization that has long ago transitioned to the remote and hybrid model of working has never questioned themselves if their POSH policy, formulated based on the working environment, is relevant in the light of modern reality, where harassment cases can be initiated by chats in company’s communication systems.

In all of these cases, there is one fundamental problem that comes into play. Many companies see POSH compliance in terms of merely having the necessary documentation, policy, committee, and training certificate, but when the law requires a working system which can stand the test of time in case a complaint is made against it, most companies fall behind. It is also true that a policy which has failed to adapt to the way courts understand and interpret the Act would have missed certain procedural elements which would make the decision rendered by the committee susceptible to attack.

Corrida Legal’s role is to ensure that the POSH framework implemented in an organisation has substance when put to the test. We help draft POSH policies and grievance redressal frameworks, keeping in mind the present day requirements of the Act and its guidelines, giving shape to the procedures that need to be followed for implementation of the policy rather than leaving it open-ended, as was done for a financial services company where the existing POSH policy was not updated even in light of the judicial interpretation of the Act over the course of the last few years. The correct constitution of the Internal Committee is as important as the policy itself, and our help lies in guiding companies through this process and training the members of the Committee on complaint handling and investigation.

In the event of receiving a complaint, we take charge of conducting independent investigations and preparing the reports required from us, keeping the process impartial towards the accused and at the same time protecting the interest of the complainant within the statutory deadlines of the Act, which is what was required by a technology company in need of our service, facing their first-ever genuine complaint against the internal committee of the company. The annual compliance requirements tend to get easily overlooked since they are not of an urgent nature and include the POSH compliances that must be done annually with regard to filing with district authorities and documentation which must be ready even before being asked for. In cases where an independent external member of the committee is required, our managing partner Pushkar Thakur is one of those people serves in this capacity for several organisations through his position on the board of the NGO AARSS. Training remains central to all of this, and training workshops and programs are specifically designed to suit the work force and the industry in which the company operates. This is because the requirements of factory workers to be aware of their reporting mechanism are different from those in an office setup. For companies whose work force consists of partially or completely virtual employees, we also help develop POSH policies for dealing with online misconduct. This was something that the consultancy firm in question never thought about before its hybrid work setup made the question unavoidable.