The government of India implemented the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act also known as the PoSH Act in 2013 to hold all employers responsible for taking measures to prevent sexual harassment at workplace.
The Act implements certain measures for organizations to be compliant to the Act. One of the measures is to provide PoSH awareness training to all the employees in the organization.
The PoSH awareness training program provides information to employers and employees about their roles and responsibilities regarding prevention of sexual harassment at workplace.
What Should You Cover in PoSH Awareness Training?
All the employees in the organization including managers, directors, and human resource professionals need to go through the training program.
Here is a list of some of the benefits of conducting PoSH awareness training in organizations: -
Incidents of sexual harassment hamper productivity of victims as well as other employees. Therefore, the better the training provided, the lower the incidents of sexual harassment, which in turn will give higher productivity.
PoSH awareness training can increase job satisfaction and employee engagement in organizations.
It also improves employee retention and the quality of workplace culture. The training also improves the perception of employees about their employer.
The reputation of an organization can be hampered if employees reveal such experiences of sexual harassment to the public. Due to this, the organization may lose its customer base as well.
Therefore, creating awareness through such programs can safeguard the reputation of the organization and ensure its customer retention.
Non-compliance to the act can also attract penalties and legal action against the organization resulting in financial impact. Conducting regular PoSH awareness training programs to avoid such legal issues and also show that the organization has taken necessary steps for prevention of unfortunate sexual harassment incidents.
The PoSH law helps women fight against sexual harassment in the workplace. The PoSH awareness training is important to make all employees understand all the norms of the Act and ensures that such cases of sexual harassment can be eliminated.
Such programs can also give rise to the number of complaints for the initial few months as the female workforce tend to report incidents which they were not reported earlier due to lack of information about the Act.
There are certain compliance norms for employers mentioned in the act, and when they fail to fulfil such norms, the license of the company could be revoked or they might be charged with heavy penalties.