 "EY survey shows firms not doing enough to protect women staff")
The survey notes that while the growing awareness about the issue has compelled many companies to take note of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, implementation of remedial measures is tardy.
Arpinder Singh, partner and national leader (fraud investigation & dispute services) at EY, said: “India Inc has undergone significant changes prompted by the mandate of law during the past couple of years, but compliance is more a tick-in-the-box approach. The challenges that surround issues of sexual harassment at the workplace call for a refined thought process and robust mechanism.”
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Further, 27 per cent of large companies and 50 per cent of the small and medium companies surveyed were not compliant with the Act with respect to training their ICC members.
There are also fears of false complaints, with 12 per cent of the respondents being of the opinion that malicious complaints increase after appraisals. They add that 50 per cent of the respondents are unclear about the genuineness of the complaints received after the assessment of employees’ performance review.
According to the EY survey, this indicates the challenges in ascertaining if the complaints received are malicious or frivolous, as it is difficult to verify the legitimacy of any complaint without thorough investigation.
Notably, 35 per cent of the respondents were unaware of the penal clause for non-compliance with laws relating to how an ICC should be constituted. Under the Act, companies can face a penalty of Rs 50,000 for the first violation and double for subsequent ones. In addition, there will be a damaging impact on the reputation of the entity.
The survey comprises the perceptions of 120 senior executives with multi-national as well as Indian companies working in various functions such as human resources, legal, risk, compliance, finance, etc.