POSH training for Indian workplaces

What POSH means at work

POSH is shorthand for the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. The Act defines sexual harassment at the workplace, requires employers to constitute an Internal Committee, sets out how complaints are to be received and enquired into, and places prevention duties on the employer.

For a training audience, the useful framing is behavioural rather than statutory. Most employees never read the Act; they need to recognise what conduct is unacceptable, understand that the workplace extends to client sites, offsites, transport and work-related digital channels, know how to raise a concern, and trust that raising one will not be held against them.

• Covers physical, verbal, non-verbal and digital conduct
• The 'workplace' extends beyond the office to client sites, travel and work chat
• Protection against retaliation is a core message, not a footnote
• Bystanders and witnesses need to know what to do as well

Why employers invest in POSH training

The compliance reason is straightforward: the Act expects employers to run awareness programmes for employees and orientation for Internal Committee members, and to be able to show it. Auditors, large customers and investors increasingly ask for that evidence during vendor due diligence.

The operational reason matters more day to day. Untrained managers mishandle the first conversation — they promise confidentiality they cannot keep, investigate informally, or delay escalation. An Internal Committee that has never practised an enquiry produces findings that do not survive scrutiny. Training is the cheapest point at which to fix both.

• Evidence of awareness coverage for internal and customer audits
• Managers who escalate correctly instead of improvising
• An Internal Committee that follows a defensible enquiry procedure
• Fewer complaints that escalate because early handling was poor

Who needs to be trained

A programme that treats everyone identically wastes time for some groups and under-serves others. We run three distinct tracks, sequenced across a compliance year.

• All employees — awareness of what harassment is, how to report, and protections
• Managers and supervisors — duty to act, confidentiality, non-retaliation, escalation
• Internal Committee members — constitution, procedure, evidence, findings, records
• HR and compliance — programme ownership, records, renewals and reporting
• Contract, vendor and on-site third-party staff — awareness coverage

HR's role in running the programme

HR usually owns the POSH calendar even where legal owns the policy. That means deciding coverage (who must attend and by when), scheduling around shifts and locations, chasing completion, and holding the records.

The parts that consistently go wrong are coverage tracking across branches, new-joiner coverage between annual cycles, and Internal Committee refresh when a member resigns. On TrainingForge these are handled as nominations, attendance and renewal reminders rather than spreadsheets.

• Define the population: employees, managers, contract staff, new joiners
• Schedule by location, shift and language rather than one global session
• Track completion and gaps, not just session counts
• Refresh Internal Committee training whenever membership changes

Delivery formats

Format should follow the audience. Awareness content transfers well online and scales across locations. Manager and Internal Committee content depends on discussion of realistic scenarios, so smaller in-person cohorts work better.

Language matters more than most buyers expect. Shop-floor, retail, hospitality and healthcare support cohorts get materially better engagement in Malayalam, Hindi or Tamil. Our trainer network is filtered on delivery language as strictly as on subject expertise.

• Online awareness sessions — distributed teams, multiple time zones and shifts
• In-person corporate workshops — managers, Internal Committee, leadership
• Blended — online theory with an in-person practice day
• Multilingual delivery — English, Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil and more

Trainer qualifications

There is no single statutory certificate that makes someone a POSH trainer, which is exactly why buyer diligence matters. We look for demonstrable subject grounding — employment law, HR investigations or Internal Committee experience — combined with actual facilitation skill, because this subject fails badly when delivered as a slide read-out.

Every trainer on the platform completes identity and credential verification before appearing in the directory, and carries feedback scores from previous engagements. You can review relevant trainers before committing.

• Verified identity and credentials before directory listing
• Demonstrable POSH, employment law or HR investigation grounding
• Facilitation experience with the specific audience — shop floor or boardroom
• Delivery languages declared and verified
• Feedback scores from previous engagements visible on the profile

Completion records and certificates

Training that cannot be evidenced is difficult to rely on. Each session on the platform produces an attendance record, participant acknowledgement and a completion certificate with a verification code, all exportable by HR.

That record set is what most HR teams use as an input when compiling internal compliance reporting and the annual return. Whether it fully satisfies your specific reporting obligations is a question for your legal adviser.

• Attendance captured per session and per participant
• Participant acknowledgement of the policy and reporting routes
• Verifiable completion certificates
• Exportable coverage reports by branch, department and period

Custom corporate programmes

Most organisations need more than a standard deck. Common customisations are scenario libraries drawn from your sector, alignment with your own policy wording and reporting routes, state-specific nuances where they apply, and a rollout plan that fits a multi-branch or multi-shift workforce.

Tell us the population, locations, languages and timeline, and we will come back with a programme design, trainer options and a quotation.

Training is not legal advice

TrainingForge and FOGS Consultants provide workplace training and awareness programmes. Our sessions explain obligations and good practice under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 and the associated Rules, but they are not legal advice and do not replace advice from a qualified lawyer on your organisation's specific facts.

Where a session touches on statutory requirements, our trainers describe them in general terms and point participants back to your own policy and legal adviser for anything specific — particularly for live complaints, enquiries in progress, or questions about your Internal Committee's constitution.