Why managers become the first point of contact in harassment cases

In case of any issues, employees go to the person they see every day, the one who signs their leave requests and knows their workload, because that relationship already carries a baseline of trust. This makes the manager the de facto first responder in almost every sexual harassment situation, long before the Internal Committee is even informed.

The problem is that most managers are trained to run projects and manage performance, not to handle a disclosure of harassment with the legal and emotional precision it demands. A manager who reacts poorly in that first conversation, by minimising the issue, asking the employee to let it go, or trying to mediate the matter personally, can shut down the reporting process before it has even started. Sensitivity in that first exchange is of utmost importance in POSH cases. It is the mechanism that determines whether the case ever reaches the people equipped to handle it.

Where managerial missteps turn complaints into legal and reputational risk

The gap between what managers are supposed to do and what actually happens on the ground has real, documented consequences. In the 2026 TCS Nashik case, multiple women employees filed FIRs alleging sustained sexual harassment at the company’s BPO facility, and a Special Investigation Team eventually arrested seven employees, including team leaders and an Assistant General Manager, with the AGM specifically arrested for allegedly ignoring a verbal complaint and failing to trigger the mandatory POSH process. That single detail, a verbal complaint that never got logged, captures where the system usually breaks. It is rarely the law that fails. It is the manager standing between the employee and the process.

Rising complaint numbers are not necessarily bad news since they often reflect growing awareness, but a growing backlog of unresolved cases points to a system that is not moving fast enough once a complaint is raised, and managers who delay or dilute a complaint at the first stage are a direct contributor to that backlog. Separately, industry estimates suggest that less than 10 per cent of harassment cases in Indian workplaces are actually reported, which means the handful of complaints companies do see are already the ones that survived a manager’s initial reaction.

What managers should stop assuming about harassment complaints

A few assumptions show up repeatedly in cases that go wrong. Managers often assume they can resolve the matter informally between the two employees, without realising that any attempt at conciliation outside the Internal Committee’s process can itself become a procedural violation.

Many assume that if there was no physical contact, the conduct probably does not qualify as sexual harassment, when repeated comments, unwanted messages, or a pattern of inappropriate behaviour can meet the legal threshold just as much as a single serious incident.

Some managers assume the employee’s calm demeanour while reporting means the incident was not severe, when composure during disclosure has no bearing on how distressing the experience was. And a fair number assume that because the alleged harasser is a high performer or a long-serving colleague, the complaint deserves a longer, quieter look before anyone else is informed.

None of these is decisions a manager is authorised to make. Managing that instinct to intervene personally is as important as the reporting itself.

What managers need to do once a complaint reaches them

The correct response is narrower and more disciplined than most managers expect. The moment an employee brings up anything resembling sexual harassment, the manager’s job is to listen without judgment, avoid asking for graphic detail, assure the employee that the matter will be taken seriously, and direct them to the Internal Committee immediately.

Organisations that have reduced repeat incidents tend to share a common pattern: managers are trained specifically on early warning signs, given a clear one-page escalation protocol they can follow under pressure, and held accountable if a known incident was not escalated in time, exactly as happened in the TCS case.

Confidentiality has to be treated as non-negotiable at the manager’s level too, since informal information leaks about a pending complaint can cause as much damage as the original incident. Regular refresher training, not a one-time onboarding session, is what keeps this behaviour consistent once the initial urgency fades.

Building manager readiness as a compliance priority for sexual harassment cases

For most companies, the cost of a mishandled complaint is more than an uncomfortable HR meeting; it has reputational and financial risks as well. With board-level disclosure requirements now in place and regulators actively scrutinising how quickly complaints move from a verbal mention to a formal inquiry, a manager’s ability to respond correctly in that first conversation has become a measurable business risk.

Training managers to recognise, respond, and redirect, without trying to solve the problem themselves, is one of the most cost-effective investments a company can make in its POSH framework. It protects employees, but it also protects the organisation from the kind of failure that starts as a single ignored complaint and ends up as a headline.

The post Managers at the frontline of preventing sexual harassment first appeared on Metis POSH Consulting Service LLP.

1. Have you received a written complaint from the victim?

Answer: Yes.

Initially she met me personally and explained to me orally on what she was going through but was hesitant to lodge a written complaint. I briefed her on how, if she wishes, could raise a formal written complaint and how (the process) the committee would take the compliant forward. Apart from briefing her about her rights as a complainant, I also gave her the options of how we could write it on her behalf and then she could read it through and sign on it.

The complainant heard the procedure and decided to write us a formal compliant via email about the entire incident as a formal.

2. Did you as a committee acknowledge the receipt of the complaint by the victim?

Answer: Yes, we did within 5 minutes. We acknowledged the receipt of the complaint and that it would be immediately looked into. I have communicated that Committee will mail her shortly and also assured her that we are committed towards safe environment and do not tolerate any kind of sexual harassment at workplace.

3. Have you informed the alleged harasser already?

Answer: No. I thought, we as a committee could meet first to discuss on the scope, applicability and content of the complaint and if found to be a case of sexual harassment, then thought of deciding on our next course of action which would include meeting both victim first (to get full details) and the alleged harasser next.

I was impressed by the initial steps taken by the presiding officer. We met as a committee, discussed and debated about the case and came to a conclusion that it was indeed a case of sexual harassment (we even decided what “type” it can be categorized as) and made a list of activities that we needed to do as part of our next course of action.

This is what we did:

1. Filed the complaint (with her signature) and our acknowledgement of that mail in our POSH file.
2. Recorded the date and time we received the complaint, responded to the mail, and decided to meet as a committee. (we took 5 minutes to respond to victim, 2.5 hrs from the time of receipt of the complaint to meet as a committee and decide on the future course of action)
3. Documented every minute detail of the meeting the ICC had, with clearly defined course of action, responsibilities of the members and the outcomes that we had to achieve, got it signed by all the members of the ICC and filed the same.
4. Sent a mail to victim with the date, time and venue for the first meeting. Also informed her about the names of ICC members who would be meeting her and requested for her confirmation on the same.
5. Sent a mail to the alleged harasser (showing him the same respect and dignity as he is not yet, proven to be guilty or otherwise), explaining in short the reason for the meeting, with the date, time, venue and the names of ICC members who would be present. We also requested him for his confirmation. A copy of the complaint was sent to the alleged harasser to come prepared for the meeting.
6. Minutes of the meeting were documented, read and signed by both the parties and filed.
7. Post the first meeting with Victim and alleged harasser, the committee met immediately and discussed the findings. After assessing the nature of the complaint, the gravity of the offense and our findings, we were very clear on the next course of action.
8. In this case, since both the parties had agreed to meet face to face to sort out the issue, we arranged for cross examination.
9. We sent out the date, time, venue and objective of the conciliation meeting to both the parties and documented the same and filed.
10. Cross examination was an eye opener for both of them as there were, apart from certain facts, a lot of misunderstandings. The observations were recorded and documented, signed by both the parties and filed.
11. The friendship had made the alleged harasser take her for granted and in spite of her not approving, he had tried to enter her personal space. The meeting ended with the complainant wanting a written apology and an assurance that he would not repeat the same.
12. The alleged harasser wrote an apology letter along with an oral apology which was accepted by the complainant. The letter was documented and a copy of the same was shared by the ICC to the victim and the alleged harasser and another copy was sent to HR for filing in the personal file.
13. The ICC met post this meeting to formally close the case and the closure was documented along with the enquiry report.
14. A report and recommendations to HR and management was made by the presiding officer thereby closing the case successfully.
15. The entire procedure took exactly 3 days from the day we received the complaint to closure of the case.

What worked in our favour?

1. Receiving and acknowledging the complaint. It brings seriousness to the cause and gives a sense of immediate relief to victim.
2. During our quarterly ICC meeting, we had developed draft of email formats for victim and the alleged harasser which made the process easy and saved time spent on creating one.
3. Documentation of every step ensured that the case was handled professionally by the ICC.
4. Conducting enquiries, documentation, report generation and filing was discussed and practiced, as one of the exercises, during the earlier quarterly meeting of the ICC which ensured professionalism and saved precious time.
5. Listening was the key. Both the parties were heard out completely without interruption.
6. The entire process was conducted in accordance with principles of natural justice
7. Maintaining strict confidentiality built trust and openness to the entire process.
8. Ownership and the commitment levels of the ICC members was high thereby spending productive time and focused attention till closure of the case.
9. Closure of the case in 3 days time showed absolute urgency and seriousness in ensuring safety of employees at workplace.

The post Sexual harassment at workplace – A case discussion first appeared on Metis POSH Consulting Service LLP.

Harvey Weinstein incident was one of the most high profile cases of Sexual harassment in recent times. #MeToo campaign was an eye opener in terms of the degree of sexual harassment at workplace. Women from all over the world came out and described their horrific tales of sexual exploitation.

I came across this data on trends in reported instances of sexual harassment across India’s top 100 companies where companies were asked to report the number of women employees and the number of cases of sexual harassment charges made by them since 2013. Please find below an interesting analysis of the same.

For the below analysis, only 52 of these firms for which consistent data is available for the past five financial years (from fiscal 2013 to fiscal 2017) were taken.

The data shows the number of reported instances of harassment has risen over the years.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the incidence of sexual harassment at workplace has increased. It could also be that the ratio of the number of harassment cases to the number of women employees on company payrolls has also gone up.

It is a fact that majority of the sexual harassment cases are not reported. The latest survey by INBA also shows that out of all the victims of sexual harassment who responded, 70% of them did not report to the management/internal complaints committee. The reasons were due to fear of retaliation, subsequent repercussions and none the less sympathy with the offender due to past mutual understanding.

Hence the data above showing increase in the proportion of sexual harassment cases could be an outcome of greater level of awareness of mechanisms available internally which is a good sign.

There is a visible trend in companies reporting cases of sexual harassment at workplace over the years showing that companies are realizing the importance and need to have an effective mechanism internally.

In my experience, the companies are also warming up to the fact that they need to go beyond compliance.  They are looking at building a culture of safe environment by involving all employees. The thrust has to be come from the top management and slowly percolated to the rest of the workforce to ensure buy-ins from the entire community of employees.

The report below shows that in services such as IT and Banking, largest number of sexual harassment has been reported. This is true even among the top 30 companies, which are a part of the BSE Sensex universe.

While data for several of the Sensex firms is missing for previous years, all of these firms reported the number of sexual harassment cases for the past fiscal year.

Banks and IT firms lead among Sensex firms when it comes to reporting sexual harassment.

What is important to note here is that the absolute numbers may not be the true or may be misleading since it is a fact that large number of women employees are employed with service sectors. When we normalize it with the number of women employees, Auto and Infrastructure firms rank higher in terms of reported cases of sexual harassment.

There is data to show that larger firms tend to report more than smaller firms. The report also suggests that when the companies were divided into four groups based on their market capitalization, the groups with higher market capitalization had higher cases of sexual harassment.

This also means that since larger firms have more at stake, they tend to be more serious in ensuring there are reliable mechanisms to deal with sexual harassment cases internally and they take care to create awareness amongst employees.

However, there have been few exceptions where in few large IT companies have reported zero instances of sexual harassment over the past fiscal year.

I read an interesting article about a study conducted by Girija Borker, an economist with Brown University. Her analysis says that compared to men, women make poorer economic choices owing to fear of harassment. If women were to choose between safety and financial stability, they chose the former and hence there is lower women workforce participation. This if not addressed by the companies, will affect India’s productivity and economic growth.

What is good to note is that India is gearing up to address the above issues. As an external consultant, I definitely see a positive trend in companies trying to set up committees, get them trained, conduct awareness sessions across company and also handle issues with utmost urgency. This is no longer only a HR initiative. It has to be driven down by the top management. Committee owns the entire responsibility of running the show. Management has to ensure that they contribute positively towards building a culture of  a safe working.

The post An overview of Sexual Harassment at Workplace first appeared on Metis POSH Consulting Service LLP.