In recent times, the safety of women at the workplace has been a much-debated issue with their growing numbers in the workforce. We are all aware of the fact that Sexual Harassment and assault at the workplace are widespread problems in India. Moreover, there is a huge culture of silence around it.

Message From The CEO

Sexual Harassment at the workplace is a widespread problem not just in India, but globally. Given how sensitive the issue of Sexual Harassment is and the reluctance on the part of women to speak up, we at Rainmaker, have decided to take the first step towards understanding how safe women really feel at their workplace. The Safe Places to Work Survey was thus designed and conceptualized to understand the safety quotient at the workplace. It is our hope and belief that this survey can be a catalyst in creating safer and more productive workplaces across India. In India, multiple surveys are designed to understand how great a workplace is, the facilities, growth opportunities, and so on. Some even have a segment on Sexual Harassment. However, they aren’t exclusively for women employees, and given the higher percentage of male employees, this data typically gets skewed or drowned in all the other data. We, therefore, decided that it was time to design a survey exclusively for women employees and to understand a woman’s perspective on workplace safety – safety from Sexual Harassment. We are proud to have pioneered this and are pleased that the survey garnered responses from 5682 women across 50+ organizations. We want to express our gratitude towards the participating organizations that didn’t make the list. The survey was made possible because of your participation. Our congratulations to the winners and all participating organizations. We look forward to your participation in the Safe Places to Work Survey, 2020. We request that you continue to participate every year so that you will continue to be heard, and steps are taken to create safer workplaces.
Antony Alex
CEO
Rainmaker Online Training Solutions

Aim Of The Survey

While several organizations have taken measures towards ensuring the safety of their women employees, such as providing safe transportation, flexible working hours, etc., there is work to be done in providing a safe and secure environment at the workplace.

With the enactment of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (“POSH Act”), we have observed significant activity among corporates to put in place measures to comply with the POSH Act. Therefore, Rainmaker commissioned a nationwide survey of women employees to evaluate organizations in India, on the degree of safety & inclusiveness they provide their female employees. The survey ‘Safe Places to Work’ 2019 was launched on 8th March 2019 on International Women’s Day in our pursuit of greater safety for women at the workplace.

Methodology Used

The ‘Safe Places to Work’ Survey 2019 covered organizations from different sectors, geographies with varying employee strength. It was conducted online, which the women employees from organizations accessed anonymously.

Only women employed with organizations across the country were invited to participate in the survey. The survey was taken by 5682 women employed in 50+ organizations across India. A total of 31 questions were asked in the survey. The questions covered various aspects of organizational culture that ensure workplace safety. The survey was developed based on extensive research and previous experiments conducted on this subject in collaboration with independent subject matter experts (SME). The SMEs discussed and approved the relevance of each question, along with the scoring mechanism. It was done to ensure an unbiased result for the survey.

Execution Process

The survey was launched in March 2019 and was closed by October 2019. The survey was taken by 5682 women employed in 50+ organizations across multiple industries, verticals & cities of India.

Outcome

The survey provided information on the prevalence of Sexual Harassment across various organizations. This data provided insights into the forms of Sexual Harassment that women typically face, as well as the level of awareness and trust in the organization to handle complaints that have been reported.

Accordingly, 27% of the participants claimed to have faced some form of Sexual Harassment.

According to the Experts, “It is interesting to note that all the participants who took the survey have experienced Sexual Harassment at least once in 3 days during their employment life cycle.”

The survey participants who have experienced Sexual Harassment on an occasional basis have rated Visual (Inappropriate Stare, etc.) and Verbal as the most rampant forms of Sexual Harassment. This clearly indicates that women employees encounter a hostile work environment.”

Although the survey responses were anonymous, yet more than 62% of the participants chose not to reveal the harasser profile. This speaks volumes about the trust quotient at the workplace.

To understand the demographics of victims of workplace Sexual Harassment, we classified them into categories based on age, seniority level, department/vertical, marital status, and city. While one group may experience workplace Sexual Harassment more frequently than others, workplace Sexual Harassment still affects a large section of the population.

15% of the participants in the age group above 56 have mentioned that they faced Sexual Harassment. Thus, Sexual Harassment is not confined to younger groups.

Sexual Harassment in the age group 26-35 is 36% more than in the 46-55 age group.

Sexual Harassment in Senior Management is 40% more than in Junior Executives. The survey participants belonging to senior management faced Sexual Harassment more than any other level in the organization.

This is a thought-provoking data point that reinforces the belief that Sexual Harassment transcends all barriers, including age. 

The data points pertaining to different verticals clearly indicated that an employee might not belong to a specific department to be vulnerable to Sexual Harassment. We can summarize in saying that Sexual Harassment is department agnostic.

Separated women are most vulnerable to Sexual Harassment. 38% faced some form of Sexual Harassment. Also, single women are 30% more likely to get harassed than married women. This speaks volumes of how harassers profile women based on their relationship status.

Women participants belonging to North & East had more victims of Sexual Harassment than any other region while the West region reported the least.

Awareness About the PoSH Law

The survey was taken by 5682 women employed in 50+ organizations across India, 86% of women participants were aware of the PoSH Law; the number dropped to 75% when the same question was asked to participants who faced Sexual Harassment. This may suggest while there is awareness, organizations have to do more to create an ecosystem of managing cases of Sexual Harassment.

Certified* – Safe Places to Work 2019

The results of the survey were announced at the People Matters L&D conference on 6th November 2019. The organizations that were awarded the certificate are:

1. Airseva (An AirBnB Company)
2. Cactus
3. Cignex Datamatics
4. EduPristine
5. Edureka
6. Future Generali
7. Harbinger
8. Medline
9. State Bank of India
10. TATA Chemicals
11. Times Internet
12. Visionary RCM (The Carlyle Group) *Organizations are listed alphabetically.

Our Experts

Dr. Helen Joseph

– Currently, Dr. Joseph is President of AROEHAN and Chairperson of YUVA Urban Initiatives. She is an External Expert on several Medical Ethics committees and a Member of the Internal Committee against Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace for several banks and educational institutions.

Vivek S Patwardhan

- Vivek was the Head of HR for Asian Paints and its group companies, including its international subsidiaries in 20 countries. He is also an avid blogger, and his HR blog-posts are extensively read and popular on the subject. He has also served as an Independent Director on the board of MSL Driveline Systems Ltd.

Sandhya Menon

– She has a master’s degree in journalism from the Asian College of Journalism and is an independent journalist and writer. She has been at the frontline of India’s #MeToo firestorm and has put massive efforts into amplifying the stories of women from all over India.

Rainmaker is on a mission to develop engaging and interactive training modules to transform boring compliance training into an engaging and interesting learning experience. We look forward to your participation in the ‘Safe Places to Work’, 2020.

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