Law on sexual harassment at work fosters new business
MUMBAI: Enterprising lawyers and gender equality experts have spotted a business opportunity in the new law against sexual harassment of women at work. With the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition & Redressal) Act, 2013 raising major concerns with respect to corporate liability and a potential threat to reputation on non-compliance, organizations are turning to the pros. This new breed of consultants helps companies with gender sensitization training, removal of unconscious biases among employees, and getting a clear understanding of the law—for a stiff fee, of course.
"In-house legal teams and HR may not have the necessary training and understanding to handle cases. Also, these require a lot of time and effort," said Devika Singh, who founded Cohere which specializes in issues like sexual harassment and workplace discrimination. Cohere's client list includes leading banks, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers, insurance companies and multinationals.
Nirmala Menon, founder of Interweave, a Bangalore-based consultancy that helps corporates with diversity-inclusion solutions through policy formulation and workshops for employees, says she has been getting requests from corporates to help them do the right thing. Lack of awareness about what constitutes sexual harassment is the biggest hurdle, she says. "Gawking, leering, innuendos or dirty jokes are still not seen as harassment," says Menon. So, she helps employees understand the nuances. Managers are told to look out for behaviour that could spell trouble later. "If people cracking off-colour jokes in office, it is better to spot it early and warn them of the risks," says Menon.
Rainmaker, an online learning and content company, has developed an anti-sexual harassment training solution called WorkSafe which is a hybrid of online and in-person training.
"For companies with a large employee base, it is a struggle to create awareness. Our product enables companies to conduct training for all its employees no matter where they are geographically situated. Therefore, the company is in complete compliance with the law," said Antony Alex, CEO, Rainmaker, which uses videos with dramatized sequences to create awareness.
Given some high-profile cases of sexual harassment (like Phaneesh Murthy and Tarun Tejpal of Tehelka) in the recent past, the dominant fear among organizations is loss of reputation, which can have a bearing on profitability and share prices. Better than tarred reputations and a financial fallout, companies are focusing on prevention. Which is why Alex sees this as a multi-million dollar business opportunity. Depending upon the number of employees a corporate has, myLaw.net charges companies anywhere between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 25 lakh. Rainmaker has already tied up with 25-odd companies and is hopeful of taking the number to 100 by the end of next year.
Alex, who is a corporate lawyer by training, realized there was a huge vacuum in the market when Rainmaker conducted a dipstick survey among corporates who felt there was an urgent need to have a high quality, scalable training tool on this subject.
While some forms of sexual harassment are obvious—a demand for sexual favours, for instance—others are more difficult to define. "An innocent action of one person might be seen as harassment by another. We need to educate employees and that can only be done by a consultant who is well aware of the laws of the land," said Deepa Nair, VP-HR (Asia & Middle East), Aurionpro SolutionsBSE 4.08 %, which has 1,000-odd employees.
One of Rainmaker's clients, Philip Morris International ( PMI), which has a diverse global workforce of over 91,000 employees, adheres to the best practices internationally. But the Act, which introduces finer nuances and more procedures, is unique to India. Siddharth Yadav, PMI's head, HR (India & Nepal), said: "This partnership has enabled us to structure a framework that is fully compliant with the local Act
while helping create a healthy, sensitized and gender-neutral work environment."
Sonal Mattoo, an advocate who specializes in workplace harassment and diversity issues, said the companies she supports are committed to ensuring full compliance and go beyond the mere tick in the box.