Are you an HR Professional? Do you want to lead the POSH implementation initiative in your organization, or assist other organizations as an external consultant? Do you need to implement POSH in multiple states? Do you want to customize POSH implementations for factory workers and those in the offices? Do you need to also train contractors’ workforce? Do you want to assist your organization with anti-sexual harassment implementation audits? Do you need to lead the administration of appropriate training for different types of employees?  Do you want to learn how to do it all? 

Are you an in-house counsel? Do you need to create elaborate systems for reporting, inquiry and implementation of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act)? Do you need to conduct detailed management and ICC training? Do you need to guide the HR team with effective implementation of the law?  

Are you a litigator or a corporate lawyer? Do you want to assist clients with POSH implementation? Do you want to conduct advanced training for management and ICC, advise on the hearing process as an expert, conduct hearings as an ICC member, file appeals or defend the organization in an appeal? 

Are you a corporate trainer? Do you want to add POSH training to your service list for your existing clients? Do you want to add in some compliance and implementation guidance as well? 

Are you a CA, CS or other compliance consultant? Do you want to assist clients with POSH implementation, training, and POSH audits? 

Here is how you can help organizations with POSH-related work, whether it is implementation, compliance, training, advisory, litigation, etc.

• Lead the entire POSH implementation in your organization (for one or more offices)
• Be a chairperson of the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) of your organization
• Become a member of the ICC of your organization
• Be an external member on another company’s ICC
• Assist another organization with POSH implementation as an external consultant (not merely an external member)
• Start a full-fledged consultancy as a POSH expert, providing a large offering of services to support organizations with POSH implementation 

Why are organizations more concerned about POSH implementation now?

• Instances of sexual harassment which surfaced during #metoo campaign, Uber, TERI, AIB and several other examples show that dysfunctional or absent internal systems are equivalent to a landmine for a brand’s reputation. 
• Senior management is concerned about implementation because sexual harassment allegations have led to the destruction of hard-earned reputations and well-built careers of many successful people. Managing directors, CEOs and co-founders have had to resign in the midst of sexual harassment controversies.  
• From 2013 to about 2017, organizational focus on implementation was very formal. However, the #Metoo movement drastically increased focus on substantive implementation and led to an increase in complaints being filed. In 2019, there has been a 20% rise in sexual harassment complaints filed (see Economic Times story here). Organizations which were only complying on paper needed genuine expertise on handling complaints.  
• In 2017, a public interest litigation was filed impleading the Centre and various states regarding non-implementation of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (the POSH Act) by various State Governments, with case number WP (C) 1224/2017. Primarily, the issue was the absence of appointment of district officers and creation of Local Complaints Committees. The Supreme Court had issued notice to State Governments. Even though a decision has not been passed, many states have implemented the provisions at district levels.
• In states like Karnataka, IT and ITeS industry can only obtain exemption from Industrial Disputes (Standing Orders) Act if they are compliant with the POSH Act and have an ICC in place.   
• In some states, action is taken against defaulting companies under the state’s Shops and Establishments Acts, which contain references to the POSH Act. If women stay back at night 
• Since 2018, the Companies Act also requires disclosures pertaining to sexual harassment incidents in the director’s statement annexed to the annual report. 

On which areas do organizations need internal and external consultants to help with implementation?

Due to global developments such as the #metoo movement, anti-sexual harassment compliance has transitioned from being a checklist-based task where the work was merely in form into a substantive task. 

Global organizations and Indian companies, including fast-growing startups which rely on venture capital and private equity, are keen to comply, because they do not want to risk the reputational costs of non-compliance or legal damages of various kinds of employment litigation.  

We have identified the key areas where internal HR managers, external HR consultants and lawyers are needed to assist organizations with POSH implementation.

#1 - Challenges around capacity-building of ICCs

• Imparting training on decision-making 
• How to conduct inquiry and the steps to be taken to ensure the principles of natural justice are observed
• What kinds of evidence to summon and how to treat such evidence 
• How to draft various kinds of notices and documents 
• How to write  recommendations
• Arriving at a coherent stance on the types of interim remedies that can be awarded to complainant and defendant in various situations
• Types of punishments which must be recommended in different situations 
• How and when to assist a complainant with approaching the police
• How to assist a complainant in filing a complaint with the ICC of another organization 
• How and when to assist the parties in arriving at a conciliation
• Actions to be taken against those who disobey the ICC’s summons 
• How to maintain case files and records of different kinds of proceedings
• How to ensure confidentiality is maintained
• What information is to be sent to management for annual compliance
• How to initiate action against false complaints
• Types of instructions to be provided to the management so that recommendations are implemented
• How to handle appeals against its decisions
• What to do when an ICC member is accused
• What to do when the promoter or CEO is accused
• How to ensure coordination between ICCs at different locations  
• What to do in locations where the district officer is not appointed

#2 - Challenges in conducting sensitization of the workforce

• How to define which acts are a part of the organisation culture 
• Finding legitimate experts to sensitize employees and train Complaints Committees
• Ensuring that male workforce is not antagonized
• How to ensure that the complainant feels safe
• How to ensure that the law is not misused 
• Sensitization on defending oneself against a complaint
• How to ensure doubts are cleared on a continuous basis, after completion of offline trainings
• How to ensure 100% of the workforce is sensitized
• Taking a decision on the training format, that is, whether it should be an offline training, an online one or a hybrid model, to ensure 100% accessibility and retention by the workforce  
• How to customize the sensitization content depending on the nature of the workplace, and delivery of the content in regional languages 
• How to select appropriate technology, vendors, experts and technological tools for the sensitization 
• How to keep records of employee participation, certification and updates
• How to ensure employees can approach experts if they have doubts  
• Ensuring that the training is contextually relevant to employees in different locations and contexts. For example, training for factory-workers may be different from training for the employees at the corporate office from contract-workers who are, say, responsible for maintenance of the facility premises at the office. In some locations, the training may have to be conducted in a regional language.  
• Ensuring that employees take out the time to participate in the training and attempt the tests
• Briefing the management team and ICC on the formulation of the organization’s stand on the areas where the law is silent or has gaps, and assisting them in formulating an organizational stance where there is a gap. 

#3 - Challenges in customization of policies

• Ensuring policies do not involve a blind copy-paste of statutory provisions
• Creation and implementation of a gender-neutral framework (if needed)
• Applicability of policies to work-related interactions between colleagues outside office (i.e. quasi-workplace scenarios)
• Customization of clauses in policies for schools, sales offices, off-site workers, journalists, etc. 
• Ensuring periodic upgrades to policies 
• Specification of mechanisms and procedures to deal with false complaints (which does not have the side-effect of unreported complaints)

#4 - Some other challenges

• How to minimize scenarios of unreported complaints 
• How to ensure functional ICCs in multiple locations
• How to ensure posters and literature about anti-sexual harassment 
• How to aggregate information accurately at the head office for the purpose of reporting 
• How to ensure that confidentiality is not breached by the organization (by non-ICC members) 

We have only listed down some of the important challenges. The actual list is much longer. 

It must be clear to you that these challenges are not directly addressed under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.

How can you help organizations resolve these challenges? What skills do you need?

Although the external expert is accorded a very specific role to perform with respect to organization’s ICC under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, in practice, experts and consultants are expected to conceptualize and lead all implementation initiatives on behalf of the employer within the organization.  
 
In light of the challenges mentioned above, experts are required to acquire a variety of skill-sets, as explained below.

 
#1 - Legal and decision-making skills 
 

• Legal skills required extend far beyond knowledge of the POSH Act and the Rules alone. One needs to know about relevant aspects of Industrial Employment (Standing Orders Act), Shops and Establishments Act (in specific states) and the Companies Act.  
• In certain cases, due to the gaps in the law, one may be required to make intelligent interpretations to effectively apply the legal provisions in practical scenarios. 
• One must also know about natural justice requirements, drafting of various kinds of notices, orders, orders and evidence-related procedures.
• In addition, decision-making skills require one to arrive at a judgment based on the available facts and circumstances and appreciation of evidence, which are not imparted to lawyers as a part of their curriculum, or even in practice, unless they have been a judge or members of a tribunal or a disciplinary committee. 
• In fact, when practising lawyers represent clients before a court or tribunal in a legal proceeding, they develop their skills to present their clients’ case in the best possible manner. It is very different from arriving at a decision based on facts, evidence and arguments of two sides.

 
#2 - Administrative and secretarial skills
 

The following are examples of administrative tasks involved: 
 

• Maintaining records of trainings and refresher courses conducted
• Maintaining lists of employees who have undergone training and those who have not
• Liaison with the management team, ICC and other stakeholders for implementation of ICC’s recommendations and other purposes 
• Creating technical rules and systems to ensure that confidentiality is not breached
• Ensuring data for annual compliance under POSH Act, 2013, the Companies Act, 2013 (and any other laws, where applicable) is accurately maintained at various locations and accurately compiled for the purposes of filing and disclosure
• Maintenance of records of ICC proceedings and case files  

 
#3 - Training skills
 

Execution of ICC training and organization-wide workforce training is beset with a number of challenges, as explained above. A trainer is required to:
 

• Possess the ability to deliver complex concepts and challenges in a simple manner 
• Address preconceived societal biases and notions
• Think of everyday examples so that members of the workforce, who are not trained in law, can relate to the training
• Have the capacity to include and onboard dissenters into the conversation so that they are engaged,
• Explain the organization’s stance with clarity,
• Be creative and thoughtful and think independently to address new doubts which arise on the spot
• Relay open or grey issues back to the organization for resolution, so that the management team can take a call and communicate an updated stance to employees          
• Training of internal members and Chairperson of the ICC requires a very nuanced practical understanding of concepts. Your stance and interpretation of the law should be balanced and fair and in the organization’s interest. You cannot take on the role of an activist, and you cannot be a misandrist. There are competing considerations that need to be managed. Further, there are multiple ICCs in a large organization, so the exercise can be more complex.  

 
#4 - Interpersonal and communication skills
 

Effective communication is necessary to be undertaken on a continuous basis through various kinds of modes - notices, creative posters, emails, handbooks, etc. is at the heart of effective implementation. Communication is required to align various stakeholders, including management, external vendors and employees to the organization’s stance. There will be frequent edits and upgrades to the organizational policies or training programs, which will also require a clear intimation to the workforce about the change and its implications for them. This requires strong communication skills. Appropriate communication skills are necessary for effective drafting of various summons and notices to conduct the inquiry and in writing reasoned decisions. Several trained lawyers who are highly knowledgeable also do not have developed written communication skills, as a result of which their writing turns out to be ambiguous. Practice in this regard can help in fine-tuning one’s effectiveness.

 
#5 - Negotiation and business skills
 

Ultimately, you will need to identify and negotiate your terms of engagement as an expert, enter into a contractual agreement and manage your relationship with multiple clients. From time to time, you will innovate, identify new upgrades to your services and pitch them to your clients, and then manage the delivery of services when you receive a mandate. As you grow, you might decide to perform only niche work or build up a team to perform a varied portfolio of assignments in this area. Whatever you do, you will need to ensure you are out there in the market, and that you are consistent with delivery. You will need to manage both existing and new clients well. Performance of this consistently and repetition of this process requires negotiation and business skills.   

Why there is a scarcity of experts

• POSH implementation work is very specialized, requiring a combination of legal, communication, training, decision-making, compliance and administrative skill sets.  
• Organizations prefer not to engage armchair experts, or activists, or misandrists. They need a balanced perspective.
• Engaging a corporate lawyer may not be sufficient for the job, because he or she may not have enough specialized training (even if there is no eligibility bar under the law for a lawyer to advise an organization or be appointed as an external member of the ICC.)   
• You will be surprised to know that corporate law firms also prefer to engage external experts for their own training. They understand that anti-sexual harassment laws are now quite specialized. 

Qualifications needed to for POSH implementation and consultancy work

Under the POSH Act and the rules, other than representatives for NGOs or organizations committed to the cause of women, any person who is familiar with issues pertaining to sexual harassment can be engaged as an external member on ICCs. 
 
Apart from familiarity with issues pertaining to sexual harassment, there are no technical qualifications necessary to be engaged as an external member.
 
You do not need a degree from a university, but you would need the skills to perform POSH implementation work.
 
You will also need to show your certificate as evidence of your skills.
 
I have a few questions for you: 
 

• Will you be satisfied with an 8-hour long monologue or a weekend training program that teaches you what is already there under the Act, as long as it offers you a certificate?  
• How will you leverage a certificate if you do not learn how to perform real work for an organization? 
• Will you be able to perform client work satisfactorily, or earn well, if you have the certificate but not the skills? 
• Do you want to pursue a course through which you can also learn the skills then?
• Would you prefer a certificate which actually enables you to perform real life implementation work? 

How to obtain POSH work from organizations - our 5 step method

Preliminary Step: Understand the concepts and framework 

Most courses and certifications only teach you this. In our course, you start here. Use our study materials, class video recordings and templates to understand the concepts and framework of the law.

Step 1: Develop a basic implementation plan in an organization

In any organization, you will need to create a detailed plan for implementation. The plan is created based on answers to the following questions:

• How many ICCs need to be created?
• What is the management’s stance on tricky issues?
• Who will conduct training and meetings with senior management? How frequently will they be conducted?
• How does the anti-sexual harassment policy need to be customized for different workplaces and scenarios (going beyond the Act)?
• Does it need to be gender-neutral? How should it be implemented?
• How will the reporting and timelines be managed locally and centrally?
• When will the audit be conducted for the directors’ report?
• Who will conduct ICC training?
• How will employee sensitization and certification be managed? How will this be managed for interns, apprentices and contractors’ employees?
• How will confidentiality be implemented?
• How will PR connected with implementation and disasters be handled? 

You will learn how to prepare the implementation plan with the help of several chapters on our learning management system.

Step 2: Learn drafting, decision-making, inquiry and decision-writing skills 

The next step is to draft various notices for creation of ICC, anti-sexual harassment policy for your organization, and to appoint the ICCs. 

You will also need to learn how to respond to complaints and how to draft various documents for conducting the inquiry and decision-making process. 

Decision-making expertise is also necessary.

Learn these with the help of various drafting-related exercises, templates and videos. You will perform through simulated assignments, recordings and in-line feedback

Step 3: Prepare an onboarding kit for prospective clients along with a roadmap for implementation

At this stage, you need to prepare the following:

• A brochure about you and your services, 
• a service chart identifying the different types of services you offer
• A roadmap for the client, stating which services are required in sequence for complete implementation
• If you need additional information from the client before you can prepare a roadmap, lay out the next steps.  
• Quote a lump sum amount and a per service price and offer the client a choice. If necessary some negotiation may be acceptable.

You should be willing to conduct one or two steps for free or at a relatively cheaper price so that the client can have an experience of your expertise and begin to trust you. 

Step 4: Prepare presentations and audios that you can actually use for demos and client work

If a client asks you for an introductory training or a demo, you should be prepared.
 
Most consultants fail to take the deal beyond this stage if they do not receive the consideration that they want for this.
 
However, you know that this is barely 5% of the total implementation. Even if you do this for free, your client gets a sense of your expertise and your quality, develops trust and is willing to engage you for subsequent steps of implementation. 
 
The practice exercise on creation of a sample PPT for sensitization along with one recording in vernacular language is extremely useful for this.

 
Step 5: Engagement letter/ consultancy agreement 

After the demo, the client will be in a position to decide how to engage with you. At this stage, you need to execute a consultancy agreement, mentioning the consideration, detailed implementation steps with timelines and an advance amount which the client can immediately pay so that you can get started.

Since you offered the first service for free or at a significant discount, and because the client can trust you now, the client has an interest in proceeding further. It is much easier for the client to send you the advance. 

Step 6: Deliver and Repeat

After you have secured the engagement letter, you have the following goals: 

• ensure successful delivery, 
• recommend additional services to the client (especially if the client did not go with the complete implementation package) 
• request testimonials, which you can include  for your brochure 
• Ask for referrals 

 
Once you have gone through the complete cycle, you can repeat this for other clients. 
 
You have just started your practice!

Potential employers

Businesses operating in any of the above industries

What is unique about this course?

• The course is not limited to a provision-by-provision study of the POSH Act and Rules, but focuses on numerous implementation-related and practical challenges. As mentioned earlier, formal compliance is not sufficient and many practical considerations need to be kept in mind for different kinds of organizations.     
• The course trains you on different kinds of actual work that is required to be performed by experts and ICC members (including the chairperson). 
• You will actually perform different tasks, relating to various kinds of actions after receipt of complaints, drafting decisions, notices, summons and customization of policies, preparation of presentations and scripts for sensitizations through our various exercises. 
• You will also perform tasks such as preparing quotations and brochures, and PPTs and recordings for a sensitization. This will enable you to prepare better to obtain work.
• You will be entitled to 3 live online doubt-clearing sessions (1 per month), and a bonus of 3-4 live online classroom sessions on POSH in the next 6 months.
• The course is tough and intensive, you will not be awarded the certificate unless you complete all the exercises. You need to spend 8-10 hours per week on this course.
• You will get access to recorded videos to perform various practical tasks and in-line written feedback from evaluators on the quality of work you produce from our evaluators.
• You will be writing an article every month and with our guidance publish the same either on iPleaders blog or various other industry publications.
• We will provide you a free course on professional networking, CV writing, interview skills and client development. 
• This training program and certification is valid to demonstrate your training for appointment as an external member, or to be an internal member of an ICC, or to assist organizations with implementation. As per the law, any person who is trained in issues related to sexual harassment is qualified for being appointed as an external member for an organization. The law does not prescribe that the training must be from a university or that the certificate be UGC-recognized. 
• After completing the course, you will be able to handle work for other clients as an external expert or your own company. You will have an idea of how to enter into retainer arrangements and price your services.