Workplace harassment is a offensive behaviour that causes emotional distress, physical harm, or a hostile work environment, making it difficult for individuals to perform their job effectively or feel safe and respected in their workplace.
The very concept of harassment in the workplace if often regarded as sexual harassment. However, harassment in the workplace has various forms that creates toxicity in work environment leading to distress in the employees and degrading the reputation of the organization.
There can be various forms of harassment in the workplace like psychological harassment, sexual harassment, verbal harassment which is frequent and common in most of the companies. The reason of workplace harassment could be many such as, biases, racism, discrimination due to varied political beliefs, creed, race colour religion and more. There is no specific limit to the reasoning for harassment. This can be due to personal biases, power dynamics, discrimination based on characteristics such as gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation, unresolved workplace conflicts, or even misunderstandings and personal grievances.
In this blog you will get a comprehensive insight into workplace harassment and the prevention Acts and rules in India along with the ways to prevent harassment in the workplace etc. Alongside, it is important to understand what counts as harassment in the workplace to exercise your rights wisely.
What is Workplace Harassment?
Workplace harassment is a form of mental and physical unwelcoming and abusive behaviour or conduct that creates a hostile, intimidating, or offensive environment for an individual or group of employees. The workplace harassment can be in any form such as verbal, physical or psychological.
Workplace harassment in any form is offensive and assaulting behaviour that not only spreads toxicity in the workplace but also degrades the morale of the employees leading to diminishing company’s reputation.
It is a legally punishable offence that has serious repercussions for the harasser. There are For, it is crucial for the organizations to stay vigilant of the workplace environment and monitor it regularly to prevent any form of workplace harassment.
Workplace Harassment Act India
After understanding the what is harassment, the necessary questions that resurfaces is what to do if you witness harassment in the workplace? Yes, it is important to be aware of the Acts against harassment at work to file a complaint against it and stand out for the wrong.
In India, we have a range of legal frameworks to address the issues of harassment rather than a single comprehensive act to address this concern.
Below is an overview of the key laws and regulations applicable to workplace harassment in India with a notion to prevent harassment:
1. Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act)
This is the primary law against harassment at workplace in India that focus on addressing workplace harassment in India, specifically targeting sexual harassment against women.
2. Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860
The IPC provides protection against different forms of harassment including sexual and mental harassment.
➔ Section 294:
It protects against obscene acts or words in public.
➔ Section 354A:
It specifies punishments against sexual harassment including unwarranted comments and advances.
➔ Section 506:
It protects against criminal intimidating or frightening through threats of killing or harming.
➔ Section 509:
It protects the women against maligning or insulting her modesty through words, gestures or acts.
3. Industrial Dispute Act, 1947
This Act addresses disputes caused due to wrongful termination, unfair labor practices, workplace discrimination and etc.
4. Fundamental Rights
The Constitution of India guarantees a few fundamental rights to the Indian citizens which includes protection against harassment such as:
➔ Article 14:
It specifies the right to equality before law.
➔ Article 19(1)(g):
It specifies the right to practice any occupation and profession without any discrimination against race, religion, caste, creed, etc.
➔ Article 21:
It specifies right to life and dignity.
5. The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976
This Act prohibits disparity and discrimination against pay based on gender. It indirectly plays a crucial role to address disparities, discriminations that occurs in pay, working conditions and employment provisions for men and women, given both are of same grades and designation.
6. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016
Ensures that employees with disabilities are protected from harassment and provided with reasonable accommodations at the workplace.
7. Mental Healthcare Act, 2017
This Act is not specif to workplaces, however it emphasizes on the right to harmonious workplace, and safe environment, indirectly supporting employees facing mental harassment.
Workplace Harassment Examples
Workplace harassment is a vast concept that is an encompass of various abusive conducts such as:
➔ Ageism Harassment
In which an employee is being harassed for being the youngest or eldest in the team. This includes involvement of mean comments that shatter the morale of the employee leading them to distress.
➔ Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment
It is a Latin phase which means “something for something”. This means to give something in favour of something in return. Mostly used by superiors in the team to promote the juniors in exchange of promoting them to higher grades.
➔ Discriminatory Harassment
In which harassment is conducted due to discriminatory cognitive conditioning of individuals relating to caste, national origin, religion, creed, race, standard of living, lifestyle choices, political choices, etc.
➔ Disability Harassment
This is based on harassing the disable employees of the organization by frequently taunting them of their in capabilities and hampering their morale.
➔ Gender Identity Harassment
In the recent reports there has been a significant growth of gender identity harassment in which employees belonging to transgender community, or individuals who had undergone sex-change surgeries to become a male or female by choice, faces harassment at their workplaces.
➔ Sexual Choices Identity Harassment
In which employees belonging to LGBTQ+ community are harassed due to homosexual choices and are forced to get into the stereotypical choices that satisfies the ego of the societal supposed characteristics.
➔ Gaslighting
where an individual or employee is manipulated into doubting their perceptions, judgments, or memories, making them feel as though they are always in the wrong and compelling them to accept the other person’s version of reality.
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➔ Exclusion or Isolation
An individual is excluded from the team although being part of the team officially due to discrimination, varied opinions, biases or other factors that do not match the cognitive conditioning or perceptions of others in the team.
Types of Workplace Harassment
The types of workplace harassment are not limited to a few or so as harassment is vast and can be of any for irrespective of the intent. The sheer intention of harassment is to humiliate the victim and is mostly due to revenge or jealousy in the workplace.
Here’s a comprehensive understanding on the most commonly prevalent different forms of harassment in the workplace and what counts as harassment in the workplace:
1. Mental Harassment at Workplace in India
Mental or emotional harassment at work is psychological form of workplace harassment that is caused by bullying, intimidation, discrimination, or undue pressure, and is increasingly recognized as a serious issue in Indian workplaces.
Unconscious biasness is the biggest reason for mental harassment in workplaces as the cognitive conditioning of employees varies from each other that makes them defensive towards the supposed characteristics of others.
2. Physical Harassment at Workplace
Sexual harassment is often confused with physical harassment but the fact is, sexual harassment is a subset of physical harassment and it is a wider concept beyond sexual assaults with multiple types of harassment counts in it including physical intimidation, physical assaults such as hitting, pushing, slapping, etc, tampering with someone’s belongings, such as damaging their equipment or workspace, coercing employees into performing tasks outside their job responsibilities through physical threats or pressure such as forcing physical exertion that can injure the other, unwelcoming and unwarranted physical touch such as poking, pulling hair, touching inappropriately, using physical pranks that can cause harm or discomfort in the name of team-building rituals, and more.
3. Verbal Harassment at Workplace
Verbal Harassment is caused by the harasser by harassing verbally such as by using words, language, or tone that is offensive, abusive, or intimidating, creating a hostile or uncomfortable environment for the recipient. Unlike physical harassment, verbal harassment is based on the communication, tone, speech and written communication of the individual. It significantly impacts an individual’s emotional well-being and job performance.
4. Workplace Bullying
Bullying is a form of physical harassment which may be caused by the harasser because of their varied poor cognitive conditioning and sadistic psychological dilemma. The conduct of workplace bullying is often reasoned as due to discrimination in gender identity, race, religion, caste, creed, etc. A person with sadistic characteristic often enjoys bullying others at workplace and encourage prejudices against the victim.
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5. Cyber Harassment
Cyber harassment is a form of digital harassment that is associated with mental harassment. The harasser abuses the victim via mails, text messages, social media, or other online platforms by sending regressive, abusive, and degraded text messages online.
It affects the mental and emotional wellbeing of the victim hence leading them to have noxious mindset towards their physical health and well-being. The recent days trolls are the biggest cyber harassment at workplace for the employees at work which churns their confidence and affects their productivity.
6. Power or Authority Harassment
Power and authority harassment at work is usually common among superiors and the subordinates. The When someone misuses their position of power to harass a subordinate, such as by making unreasonable demands, setting them up for failure, or threatening their job security, extending their work hours from the supposed work hours, assigning them job roles that don’t matches their skills and capabilities, etc are a form of authority harassment.
7. Retaliatory Harassment
Harassment as a form of retaliation against an employee for reporting misconduct, whistleblowing, or asserting their rights. This is done in retaliation to the action taken against the harasser. Here, the harassment can be of any type at the beginning but after the victim complains or call out the act, the retaliation of the harasser against the victim is retaliatory harassment.
8. Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment is the most heinous and malicious act or conduct in the workplace that involves unwanted or unwarranted physical abuse. It includes unwelcome advances or propositions, sexual comments, jokes, or gestures, sharing explicit content or materials at the workplace, physical harassment like inappropriate touching or groping, physical coercion or unwarranted actions that makes the victim uncomfortable, improper comments or body or sexual organ, etc.
The sexual harassment in the workplace is serious and should be prevented crucially to avoid legal lawsuits and protect employees from the physical and mental distress.
How to Prevent Harassment in the workplace?
Harassment at work is serious and should be prevented with robust strategies to build a healthy workplace environment for the employees. In a country like India, people considers workplace as a pious place to earn bread. so, it is the responsibility of the employers to make special provisions against workplace harassment and protect the dignity of employees at all costs.
Here we give you a few best techniques that will help you prevent abuse and harassment at work hence building a robust work culture and protecting the interest of the employees.
➔ Develop Anti-harssment Policies
Develop clear anti-harassment policies against harassment at workplace with structured and strict punishments mentioned clearly for the harassers. The policies should align with the governement laid policies as well and should be focused on the harassment acts that counts as harassment.
There should also be policies that punishes the liers who uses the harassment provisions for their intersts. Infact, the anti-harassment policies should be gender neutral and should benefit both male as well as female employees who are the vivtims of harassment.
POSH (The prevention of sexual harassment) Act should be implied and a POSH committee in the woirkplace should be appointed to look afters the matters of harassment at work and counter it immediately without delay.
➔ Raise Awareness
Educate your employees on the policies and acts against the harassment. Also, arrange appropriate training programs to aware them of workplace harassment, what are the types of harassment and what counts as an act of harassment to avoid false reporting of harassment.
Awareness is the biggest empowerment you can provide your employees with. So, arrange sessions and workshops to educate your employees on the harassment policies, punishments, consequences and harassment reporting channels.
➔ Promote Open Communication
Encourage and promote open communication to empower your employees with the support from management. Make the communication open and keep it confidential to enhance their confidence to come forward and call out the harasser.
Document the complaint and encourage them to put their complains against harassment upfront without fear of getting identified or getting publicly humilated. Ensure their security and address their concerns.
➔ Monitor Your Workplace
Monitor your workplace regularly to check if any harassment issues are resonating in your workplace. you can conduct thorough investigation by seeking feedback from the employees, by self-accessing the workplace by conducting research, discussing the workplace situations with colleagues, noticing minute inconviniences of harassment counts incidents and addressing it from the very beginning, keeping an open forum of complain against harassment in your HR management software, etc.
➔ Seek Feedback
Seek employee feedback regularly by encouraging one-to-one discussions regarding the anti-harassment policies. Making a complaint form on the employee self-service portal for employees to raise concerns without being publicly identified the best way to encourage them to raise their voices and participate in framing anti-harassment policies by giving constructive feedback on policies against harassment. The complaint portal will only be accessible to the authorized personnel of the organizations so that the employees will feel confident reporting any changes regarding the anti-harassment policies.
➔ Lead by Example
Leadership and management should model respectful behaviour and enforce policies consistently. Lead by example by enforcing appropriate consequences that are mentioned in the anti-harassment policies on the harasser (if any). Leading by example will create confidence in employees to stand out for the right and will scare the intentions of the wrong-doers in the organization.
➔ Conduct Thorough Investigations
Conduct investigations on the compliance of anti-harassment policies. Furthermore, you can also check on the workplace culture to ensure there are no harassment concerns that are raising. Be vigilant about the workplace culture and the groups in office premises also, take necessary actions if required in case you encounter any harassment case or incidents that anticipates harassment in future.
➔ Support Victims
Support the victims of harassment non-prejudiced way and based on their gender. Demonstrate an equal support for both the male and female employees as harassment and abuses aren’t based on genders. Help the victim by providing proper counselling that would ease their mental chaos and let them speak up against the harasser. Ensure that the victim and the authorized counsellor have a dialogue in a confidential place without much interference.
Also, document the complaints of both the victim and the harasser and investigate the matter thoroughly before reaching to any conclusion and to avoid wrong decisions. Ensure security of the victim’s statements and dialogues along with protecting their dignity.
➔ Enforce Consequences
Don’t hesitate to enforce the consequences or punishments on the harassers if proved guilty. Remember people lead by example and punishing the wrong-doer will not only empower others suffering with the same mental trauma but will also scare the individuals with sadistic harassment mentality to stay in their boundaries in the fear of harsh consequences.
➔ Prioritize Strengthening the Workplace Culture
Focus on strengthening the workplace culture by improvising inclusion plans that builds respect, trust and enhance team building among your employees. You can arrange counselling sessions, other activities that will help your diversified pool of audience come together and work as a family protecting each other’s morale, dignity and respect each other’s boundaries.
Know your Rights
Being an employee or an employer, it is your morale responsibility to stand against the wrong. Workplace harassment is a serious concern and we should look up to each other to prevent it and face it. Educate yourself adequately on the workplace harassment and its types, what counts as harassment, the ways to prevent it and the laws or policies against it.
You can also seek help from your trusted personnel in case you encounter workplace harassment at your place with you or with any of your peers. Do not shy away or ignore the harassment in fear of retaliation from the harasser for today we got a lot of help regarding anti-harassment, file a complaint and address the concerns of the victims to eradicate such a sadistic harassment culture from your workplace.
FAQs on Workplace Harassment
1. What to do if You Witness Harassment in the Workplace?
You should immediately file a complaint to your anti-harassment committee in your organization, or seek immediate help from your seniors, or peers to escalate the matter.
2. Punishment for Workplace Harassment in India
The punishment for harassment states that the person found guilty of harassing in workplace has to pay a fine up to Rs.1,00,000 or imprisonment for up to 3 years or both.
3. What Counts as Harassment in the Workplace?
Harassment in the workplace includes any:
- Physical Harassment
- Psychological or emotional tort
- Verbal Harassment
- Cyberbullying
- Interference with working hours and performance
- Discriminating harassment
- Ageism
- Exclusion and isolation
- Gaslighting, etc.
4. Mental Harassment at Workplace IPC Section
Mental harassment at workplace has no definite provision under Indian Penal Code 1860. However, there are a few sections such as 294, 354, 354A, 498A, and 509 which are applicable if a person is found guilty to conduct mental harassment that causes emotional distress, intimidation, or other forms of harm at workplace.
5. Harassment of Women’s at Workplace Act 110
The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (prevention, prohibition and redressal) Act 2013, popularly known as the POSH Act (Prevention of sexual harassment) is the law designed to protect women employees from sexual harassment at the workplace and ensure safety at work for women.
6. How do I Complain about Mental Harassment at Work in India?
The first thing you can do is Talk to your HR, seek help from seniors or peers, file a complaint against the harasser, take legal actions, approach to labour authorities, and in case of severity you can also file a criminal suit against the harasser.
