Dear members,
A news item with the above-mentioned heading has been published in today’s Times of India. The news clipping is scanned and uploaded along with this post.
Cases of sexual harassment are not new and our desensitised mind could ignore the news as we ignore other such news. However, this case is different. The harassers are not outsiders but company's employees. There is a lesson to be learnt on various counts from this episode. Case like this was avoidable. While taking this news as case study for discussion, it is assumed that the news item reflects actual reality and there is no distortion.
Lessons to Leadership: - The report says that the woman has been bearing brunt of sexual harassment since April. Therefore, more than three months since this has been happening but then why she did not feel safe to file a complaint on sexual harassment? What was her hesitation? Does her hesitation casts doubt on her trust on the management? In the pursuit of their vision, has leadership sidestepped earning trust of their employees?
Lessons to the Reporting Authority: - The four members had been sexually harassing their own teammate. How come it was not noticed by their Project Manager or any other authority? Why the woman employee did not feel free to discuss this with her own manager? Are managers too impersonal in that company and they do not like to discuss anything other than technical issues?
Lessons to HR: - The news says that her teammates had been passing lewd comments against her in lobby or elevator. How come their affront did not reach to the ears of HR though it had been happening in the public place and not in their cubicles? Why HR did not create mechanism to generate organisational intelligence? Going further, HR Department is expected to spread awareness on the law on sexual harassment. They also need to create a committee and communicate the details of the committee through regular circulars. HR might have done all this, but when testing time came, why it proved ineffective?
Admin Department: - In three long months, how come security personnel did not notice what was going on? If they noticed, why they felt to look at the other side? While security may not confront the perpetrators directly but at least they could have reported to the security officer? Did it happen and if happened, why no action was taken on their report?
Lesson to the Training Department: - The news item says that the trouble started when the team was sent for outbound training abroad. The difference of opinion during this event was the cause of this harassment. In these times of cost-cutting, a company that sends employees for outbound training and that too overseas, appears to be cash-rich. However, outbound training supposed to bring cohesiveness. But then far from cohesiveness, the event sown the seeds of discord and even tormented one of the members. Why the training authorities did not take feedback from the members on the effectiveness of their training after couple of months? Why they were silent?
Conclusion: - In these days of social media, nothing remains hidden and by now in which company the incident happened must have become viral. Now who is responsible for the loss of brand image or credibility? Who will take moral responsibility? Is concept of moral responsibility restricted only to the politicians and corporate honchos are exempted from it?
There are serious questions for all of us to introspect. How many of us have time to do it? Now company authorities say that they will cooperate with the investigating agencies. Do they have any other option?
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
From India, Bangalore
7879A news item with the above-mentioned heading has been published in today’s Times of India. The news clipping is scanned and uploaded along with this post.
Cases of sexual harassment are not new and our desensitised mind could ignore the news as we ignore other such news. However, this case is different. The harassers are not outsiders but company's employees. There is a lesson to be learnt on various counts from this episode. Case like this was avoidable. While taking this news as case study for discussion, it is assumed that the news item reflects actual reality and there is no distortion.
Lessons to Leadership: - The report says that the woman has been bearing brunt of sexual harassment since April. Therefore, more than three months since this has been happening but then why she did not feel safe to file a complaint on sexual harassment? What was her hesitation? Does her hesitation casts doubt on her trust on the management? In the pursuit of their vision, has leadership sidestepped earning trust of their employees?
Lessons to the Reporting Authority: - The four members had been sexually harassing their own teammate. How come it was not noticed by their Project Manager or any other authority? Why the woman employee did not feel free to discuss this with her own manager? Are managers too impersonal in that company and they do not like to discuss anything other than technical issues?
Lessons to HR: - The news says that her teammates had been passing lewd comments against her in lobby or elevator. How come their affront did not reach to the ears of HR though it had been happening in the public place and not in their cubicles? Why HR did not create mechanism to generate organisational intelligence? Going further, HR Department is expected to spread awareness on the law on sexual harassment. They also need to create a committee and communicate the details of the committee through regular circulars. HR might have done all this, but when testing time came, why it proved ineffective?
Admin Department: - In three long months, how come security personnel did not notice what was going on? If they noticed, why they felt to look at the other side? While security may not confront the perpetrators directly but at least they could have reported to the security officer? Did it happen and if happened, why no action was taken on their report?
Lesson to the Training Department: - The news item says that the trouble started when the team was sent for outbound training abroad. The difference of opinion during this event was the cause of this harassment. In these times of cost-cutting, a company that sends employees for outbound training and that too overseas, appears to be cash-rich. However, outbound training supposed to bring cohesiveness. But then far from cohesiveness, the event sown the seeds of discord and even tormented one of the members. Why the training authorities did not take feedback from the members on the effectiveness of their training after couple of months? Why they were silent?
Conclusion: - In these days of social media, nothing remains hidden and by now in which company the incident happened must have become viral. Now who is responsible for the loss of brand image or credibility? Who will take moral responsibility? Is concept of moral responsibility restricted only to the politicians and corporate honchos are exempted from it?
There are serious questions for all of us to introspect. How many of us have time to do it? Now company authorities say that they will cooperate with the investigating agencies. Do they have any other option?
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
From India, Bangalore
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