According to a recent study report, almost a quarter of the organizations in the country are not complying with the PoSH(Prevention of Sexual Harassment Against Women at Workplace)Act to the full effect and have gaps in the implementation and compliance to the PoSH Act, 2013.
Hence, here is a short checklist that can come handy to evaluate if your organisation is compliant with the PoSH Act of 2013. The checklist can be used by employers, HR professionals and other key stakeholders to quickly check whether an organization is compliant with the PoSH Act, 2013. For convenience, the checklist is categorised into 5 sections.
1.Policies
1.1. Have you drafted and implemented a comprehensive prevention of sexual harassment policy in your organization?
Yes No
2.Notices
2.1. According to the PoSH Act 2013, every employer shall display at any conspicuous place in the workplace, the penal consequences of sexual harassment and the order constituting the IC.
Have you displayed such sufficient notices at your organisation?
Yes No
2.2. Have you provided sufficient information on the IC members like Name, Contact details etc so that employees are aware and can reach them easily?
Yes No
3.Employee assistance and awareness
3.1. Every employer shall organise workshops and awareness programs at regular intervals for sensitizing the employees with the provisions of the Act. Do you conduct periodic PoSH awareness training like PoSH e-learning, classroom training or blended learning etc at your organisation?
Yes No
3.2. Have you laid down a system or process in place to provide assistance to an employee who has been sexually harassed, in approaching the complaints committee?
Yes No
3.3. Does the organization provide assistance to the harassed employee(victim) to make a criminal complaint in the police station? Have employees been made aware of this?
Yes No
4.Obligations pertaining to IC(Internal complaints Committee)
4.1. Have you set up an Internal Complaints Committee (IC) for each branch or office as per the PoSH Act, 2013?
Note: PoSH Act is applicable to all organisations and its branches with a minimum of 10 employees.
Yes No
4.2. Do you have the required number of members in the IC as per the conditions laid down in the PoSH Act, 2013?
Yes No
4.3. The PoSH Act mandates that at least one-half of the total members in the IC shall be women. Does your IC comply with this?
Yes No
4.4 The PoSH Act also mandates that the IC should have at least one external member from NGO or organizations committed to women’s rights. Does your IC comply with this?
Yes No
4.5. Apart from training the employees on the PoSH Act, do you organize or conduct orientation programs(online or workshops) to train the members of the Internal Committee?
Yes No
4.6. Do you provide necessary facilities to the IC for dealing with sexual harassment
proceedings?
Yes No
4.7. Do you monitor the functioning of the IC? For example, are the complaints being decided within prescribed time limits and whether necessary procedures or actions are taken or followed.
Yes No
5.Filing of reports
5.1. Does the IC forward an annual report containing necessary details of sexual harassment proceedings to the Board and LC at the prescribed intervals?
Yes No
5.2. Do you include information about pending and resolved sexual harassment cases in the annual report of your company?
Yes No
The above checklist is not an exhaustive one and includes 14 handpicked questions that can help you to evaluate if an organization is compliant with the PoSH Act, 2013.
As a bonus with the checklist, I am excited to share the sample of our award-winning PoSH e-learning and orientation on IC PoSH which is being extensively used across many companies to not only train their employees but also as a refresher to the classroom training program to reinforce learning.
Click here to explore our award-winning PoSH e-learning sample.
Click here to explore our e-learning module on orientation for the Internal Committee(IC)
For more details, you can write to us at hello@playxlpro.com. Feel free to share this checklist with your network.
To get this checklist in a pdf printable format, feel free to contact us.
