PoSH is (Prevention of Sexual Harassment of Women in Workplace). According to this act, it provides prevention of sexual harassment of women. India’s Prevention of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace (PoSH) Act requires every organization to have a sexual harassment policy, prevention system, procedure and service rules for its employees.
When POSH Act did came in India?
The Act came into force from 9th December 2013. This statute suspended the Vishakha Guidelines for prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) introduced by Supreme Court of India.
Is PoSH training compulsory in India?
POSH training is mandatory for all organizations in India and also includes training for employees.
What is Sexual Harassment?
Sexual harassment includes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature in the workplace or learning environment.
What is POSH training?
Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) is a law enacted under the POSH Act of 2013. The POSH Act prevents and protects women in the workplace from sexual harassment. This also includes providing remedies for the breach.
PoSH training workshops are a method used by organizations to educate their employees about anti-sexual harrasment in the workplace and make them aware of everything that is included. PoSH awareness training also clarifies corrective mechanisms to take in the
event of an incident with yourself or a colleague. Timely training can avoid legal issues and also maintain a healthy work environment.
Why PoSH training is important for employees?
PoSH training is important to make employees aware of the law and the consequences of violation in the organisation. Therefore, the training has to be organised not only for women but also for men to know what is acceptable at the workplace and what not. This helps to create a positive working environment.
Sometimes women are unclear about the act or the incidents which are covered under the sexual harassment act. Sometimes, colleague want to help but they themselves are unclear about the law. This is why PoSH awareness training is critical in any organisation to protect women rights and a healthy and safe work environment for growth and success.
What are the Benefits of PoSH Training?
• Build Awareness among employees: PoSH training creates awareness among employees. Women at workplace better understand instances of sexual harassment and procedure for reporting within time for timely redressal. Men and women colleague equally have awareness and can help report a case of sex harassment when all are trained simultaneously. This ensures a safe working environment for women.
PoSH training also educates employees on what comes under sexual harassment, how to handle false complaints and how to make the correct use of law and prohibit misuse.
• Reduce incidents of sexual harassment and increase productivity: With awareness comes great responsibility. PoSH training helps employees become more aware, compliance is assured, and there are fewer incidents of sexual harassment . It helps to create a positive and safe working atmosphere for employees. Employees are free to participate, interact and coordinate with each other when they feel safe. People are also more satisfied with their jobs, which contributes to employee retention. All of these contribute to providing high productivity work.
• Helps companies to maintain legal compliance: POSH training ensures prevention, prohibition and protection against sexual harassment at the workplace. POSH awareness training ensures legal compliance for the organization.. A case against sexual harassment can damage the reputation of the company and the image among the existing and new customers.
• In addition, it can also cause monetary and mental harassment among the employees. Hence it is crucial to have PoSH training for employees to safeguard your company reputation.
• Boosts Moral and Quality of Work Culture: PoSH training educates employees and management on steps to avoid sexual harassment of women at the workplace. As a result, the employees are better aware of when to report, and the management knows to set up a robust redressal system within the company. Without an effective redressal mechanism, employees can never feel safe. Hence, we can say that PoSH courses boost morale among employees and educate the management to be compliant. Furthermore, it brings about better coordination between the employees and management and also fellow employees. All these factors provide a comfortable environment to work, promoting a positive work culture.
The benefits mentioned above justify the importance of PoSH training for every organization as people are a crucial part of any organization to perform and succeed in business. Moreover, employee satisfaction greatly influences the position of the organization in the real world.
How to get POSH training for Employees?
There are various modes of POSH training can be given to employees in an organisation. The mode of training includes Virtual classroom training, Classroom training, conducting seminars on training modules and so on. The mode of training to be used depends upon the origination structure or the nature of the organisation. Some of the factors that an organization should consider while deciding the mode of conducting Prevention of sexual harassment training are:
• Spread of employees at various locations
• Number of employees
• Attrition of employees
• Multilingual employees
• Frequency of the Training Program
All these factors help you understand your organisation needs and decide the mode of training that is most suitable.
When you have employees in different location or the organisation has branch offices, then virtual mode of training is best suited for the organisation.
Conclusion:
PoSH compliance it is a legal necessity for POSH awareness training also ensures that employees and management work together to have a safer and better workplace
