- By Admin
- 12 Jan, 2026
SpaceUpp is a workplace governance advisory firm helping Indian organisations build systems that protect, stabilise, and strengthen the workplace.
SpaceUpp is a workplace governance advisory firm helping Indian organisations build systems that protect, stabilise, and strengthen the workplace.
The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, commonly called the PoSH Act, applies to every organisation in India with 10 or more employees. It does not distinguish between startups and corporates, between metros and smaller cities, or between formal and informal workplaces. The obligation is the same.
What the Act demands is not a policy document filed in a drawer. It is a complete, functioning compliance system, one that must be operational before a complaint arrives, not one assembled in response to a complaint.
This is what that system requires.
The Act defines sexual harassment broadly. It includes physical contact, demand or request for sexual favours, sexually coloured remarks, showing pornography, and any other unwelcome physical, verbal, or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature.
Critically, the law does not restrict harassment to full-time employees interacting with other full-time employees. A complaint can arise from any interaction involving employees, clients, vendors, contractors, interns, or visitors, and it can occur on office premises, at off-site work locations, or in digital workspaces.
The law also covers acts that occur during work-related travel and at employer-organised events outside office hours. If the interaction has a connection to the workplace, the employer carries accountability.
PoSH compliance is not achieved by drafting a policy and conducting a single training session. The Act specifies what a functioning system looks like. These are the components a compliant organisation must demonstrate:
✓ A written PoSH policy that is gender-inclusive, clearly worded, and accessible to all employees
✓ An Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) constituted correctly with a Presiding Officer, internal members, and a certified External Member
✓ A certified External Member (EM) of the ICC. The External Member should be able to demonstrate meaningful experience in women's rights, social work, workplace safety, or issues relating to sexual harassment. Organisations should maintain documentation supporting the member's eligibility.
✓ Awareness training for all employees, covering what constitutes sexual harassment, how to report it, and what protections exist for the person who reports
✓ Capacity building for ICC members, so the committee can conduct inquiries fairly, document accurately, and comply with the Act's procedural timelines
✓ A clearly visible and accessible complaint filing mechanism. Employees must know where to go and how to report. A visible PoSH poster with ICC and EM contact numbers must be displayed
✓ Dated and validated documentation. All steps, decisions, communications, and outcomes must be recorded and maintained
✓ The organisation files an annual PoSH compliance report with the appropriate authority, including the SheBox portal and relevant state filings
Missing even one of these means the compliance system is incomplete. Incomplete compliance and non-compliance carry the same legal consequences.
Across Indian workplaces, the most common compliance gaps follow a recognisable pattern.
The ICC is constituted but not trained. The External Member position is filled by someone lacking the required qualifications. The policy exists on paper but has not been shared with employees. Annual filings are missed because no one tracked the deadline. Training was conducted only once, at onboarding, and not repeated.
A complaint does not assess intent. It assesses whether a functioning system was in place. An organisation with the right intent but an incomplete system still faces the same liability as one with no system at all.
The Act places the burden of compliance on the employer, not on HR, not on the ICC, not on individual employees. If the system is absent or deficient, the employer is directly responsible for the consequences.
The financial and reputational consequences of non-compliance are documented in Indian courts. Statutory fines start at Rs. 50,000 and escalate with repeated violations. Compensation orders in contested cases have reached crores. Beyond the numbers, the reputational exposure from a public complaint, especially for organisations in early growth stages or in investor conversations, carries costs that no fine schedule can capture.
More importantly, non-compliance puts the employer in the position of having to manage a crisis without the systems to handle it. By the time a complaint is filed, the options available to an unprepared organisation are limited and expensive.
PoSH compliance is most effective and least disruptive when it is built before it is needed. A functioning system takes approximately three to six months to implement correctly, including policy drafting, ICC formation, External Member empanelment, training, and documentation.
Organisations that treat compliance as a background task rather than an active system are, in practice, carrying an open liability. The question is not whether a complaint will arise. The question is whether the organisation is equipped to handle one when it does.
Check Where the Compliance System Stands
A free PoSH audit call identifies gaps in the current compliance system: policy, ICC structure, training status, and filing history. It takes 30 minutes and gives a clear picture of where the exposure is.
