Waiting for India Inc's Uber moment

Awareness is the first step towards building a safe and gender-sensitive workplace

In a blog, Susan Fowler, a former engineer at Uber, described in surreal detail, a series of events over a period of one year that included verbal harassment from co-workers, sexual harassment from her manager and complicit behaviour from the company’s human resource leaders. Fowler’s experience prompted Uber to appoint the former US attorney general to investigate the case. Within days, the head of engineering and star hire Amit Singhal resigned for not divulging harassment charges at his former employer, Google.

Every day brings a new story of a dysfunctional work culture at the world’s most valuable companies. 

As a diversity consultant, I must confess that Indian companies are no better. In some instances, India Inc is a generation behind in matters of gender fairness. The very public case of TERI and R K Pachauri showed that these attitudes are entrenched even in larger organisations.

Small or medium-sized businesses are even worse. A recent report highlighted instances of physical abuse towards women at a large textile mill in Tamil Nadu. Despite employing thousands of workers, the leadership had not put any checks in place for complaints. 

Safety at the workplace matters. The consequences of ignoring this issue can be damaging. Just one blog has left the $70-billion Uber reeling. In the last two weeks, the #deleteuber campaign has led to thousands of customers uninstalling the app.

Yet, business leaders frequently associate gender equality as part of corporate social responsibility, something only bigger multinationals can afford. 

The Prevention of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act (PoSH) came into existence in 2013. Well-intentioned as the law is, its implementation has been patchy. 

In a survey, Ficci and EY found that 36 per cent of Indian companies and 25 per cent of multinational corporations in India are not compliant with this Act. Even when companies form PoSH committees, parochial attitudes persist. It’s not uncommon to hear a business leader gripe that women use the law to their advantage or that it’s an unnecessary overhead for a business. 

This narrow view of the PoSH Act goes against the push for diversity in the business world. The basis of ensuring more women in the workplace is a safe and equitable work culture. It is here that corporate India can make the most impact if it is serious about correcting the gender imbalance.

Since the Uber episode came into the public eye, we launched a systematic campaign to ask Indian companies on their plans for training PoSH committees. The most frequent answer was: “What is PoSH”? 

There is a silver lining, though —businesses are taking this issue seriously. From a company with 11 people to a conglomerate with over 5,000 employees, many businesses have come forward to learn more, to train their employees, to do right. 

Awareness is the first step towards building a safe workplace.

The author is founder, Serein Inc, a diversity and inclusion consulting company