I am Sabitha, presently working as Vice president, HR in Z Technologies and I am employed in this organisation for the past five years and joined as Senior Manager, HR. Prior to that, I have 9 years of experience in three other organisations in the field of HR, managing salaries, personal relations and other allied portfolios.
I am a post graduate from SRM University and I am presently pursuing my PhD in Women Empowerment. Recently in my organisation, there was an interesting case that came to my knowledge by a Manager working in marketing Support. Upon inquiring, she wanted to have detailed conversation with me and I organised a private meeting officially with her.
During the meeting, the outcome was that she was being harassed and intimidated often and at odd times by her fellow male colleague, Mr.A. She showed me some proof by way of some SMS messages and she wanted me to take suitable action in this regard and also update her on the developments.
I informed her that our Company has ICC guidelines as per the POSH Act and told her that I will call an official meeting with the ICC members. A week after that, ICC meeting was held with the panel members and the lady was called to give her explanation officially and it was clearly documented as per the guidelines and we informed her that the secrecy will be maintained as per her wish. She was assured the company will take all its might with regard to safety pf women at workplace at all cost, always.
She need not worry about her workplace safety and to continue her work with the same efficiency. Subsequent to that, we called the person accused by the lady for the ICC meeting and explained the complaint against him. He vehemently refuted and said he had never done such act and he has no such intentions as well not only with this woman but with any other woman in the office and he maintains a professional relationship only with one and all.
When we showed him that there are some proofs which the lady has given by way of SMS messages, the person explained that it is not his number and that can be cross checked with the mobile service provider. We documented the whole sequence of communication during the meeting and told him we ll revert later. Subsequent to this, we conducted a detailed enquiry on the whole thing and it almost took 3 weeks through various channels and found that the person accused is not at any wrong.
The messages shown by the lady were from a mobile number which was her own and to the surprise of everyone, she didn't bother to check that before documenting. On further investigation, we found that they were staying in the same locality and they has some other family issue unconnected to the office. the lady concerned has cooked up the whole story to malign the person's image and possibly throw him out of the job using POSH Act as a cover. We called her for a meeting after the enquiry and confirmation, and confronted her with the facts which resulted in her accepting her mistake.
As a company policy, we told her to resign or she will be terminated. She accepted her mistake and resigned and the matter came to a close. The purpose of this story is for people to understand that if somebody wants to play using the POSH Act, they will pay dearly as ICC guidelines are very clear and have the necessary checks and balances to come to a correct conclusion.