The PoSH Policy Of Times Internet

By Rajkanya Mahapatra

Times Internet is India’s largest digital products company. Times of India, Cricbuzz, ET, Gaana, and iDiva are some of Times Internet’s most iconic brands. With over 4000 employees spread in different regions across the country, it’s a mammoth task to manage and ensure a safe workplace. We asked Kanishka Mallick, the Head of Talent Acquisition and Lead of Human Resource Business Partner at Times Internet, a range of questions that addressed the nitty-gritty of implementation of PoSH at Times Internet. We’ve edited his answers for brevity. The entire transcript of his interview is available, here.  

Q: At Times Internet, how does PoSH work?

A: So I am, incidentally, an IC member. For me, it’s very easy to say as I know the ins and outs of things. What about a common employee in the company? Is he or she aware? That’s my question. It’s people like me who have to be responsible and publicise PoSH or other notices/policies as much as possible. The language needs to be simple. I am saying that it is up to us, we need to go out, talk more about it, publish more, tell more people that we exist, tell more people that it is ok to be not ok.

From a Times Internet perspective, we have had the POSH policy for the last decade now. As I said, most of our portfolio products are very start-up-ish. There are people ranging from 30 people to 70 people in on set up. And because they are small teams, they may not have mature women to make a committee. Since there is a mandate, instead of looking at it product-wise, we have done it region-wise. Every region – north, west, south has a committee and we’ve an external PoSH consultant who travels largely for training sessions and orientations right now because we have very limited complaints. Thankfully that’s an indication that we are doing okay as an organisation.

Q: Have you faced any obstacles in building a culture for PoSH and implementing it at the organisation at the legal level?

A: I’ll take a very random example, people say that the crime rate has increased in India over the last 10 years. According to me, that crime rate has increased because more cases are being reported. To add to that, as a lot of things have gone online now, things reach you much faster for you to make a judgement in your mind. Judging the veracity of that piece of information is a different story but at least you get to know about it.

Likewise, in the corporate setup a lot of times, women were not reporting things because, one, they didn’t even know something like this (PoSH) existed in the organisation as it was not even published. It was only a ‘good to do’ thing. Yea, it was there in the director’s report but it was not on the notice board for a woman to know it was there. Now there is a mandate, it is there on the notice board, it is there on the policies, website, intranet portal, and more. At least women are aware that there’s a committee that investigates. As a result, there are more reports which is a good thing.

The second bit, in terms of challenges, the mandate clearly says that the majority members in the committee have to be women. But they have to be women who are mature enough to understand the sensitive nature of their role. To find and appoint such women would mean you’ve to have enough mature women in your system to take up this responsibility – which means you have to hire more women. These women would’ve to stay with you longer, and hence, understand not just growth but also understand the system, and then develop the concept of equity within the system. It’s a multi-layered challenge. It’s not about whether the organisation wants to do it or not, it’s about how systematically you bring about that change. So I think that’s the larger challenge that every organisation faces. Some do a better job at it and are appreciated, some are limited to their own fallacies.

In the corporate setup a lot of times, women were not reporting things because, one, they didn’t even know something like this (PoSH) existed in the organisation as it was not even published. It was only a ‘good to do’ thing. Yea, it was there in the director’s report but it was not on the notice board for a woman to know it was there. Now there is a mandate.

Q: Is there a cut-off mark that a startup must have x number of employees to have an HR representative?

A: No no, there’s no ratio as such. It just so happens that we may have enough number of people in regions where anyway a person is required. For example, in NCR we have three offices, one in Gurgaon and two in Noida. All three offices have more than 800 people. The biggest office is in Film City which has 1800 people in one single office. We’re about 4000 people strong minus the acquired companies. If I include acquisitions running independently, if I bring them in, we’re close to 5000 employees. So, by default, there are enough numbers that mandates HR representation.

Q: Is it a challenge that there are regional offices and not local offices? What happens when a PoSH complaint is lodged at a local office?

A:So, the policy clearly states that there’s an email ID that you can send your complaint to – the access to which is restricted to the chairperson and two other people. The entire committee doesn’t get to know when there is a complaint. Only the 2-3 people who are part of the core committee will pick and choose. Because if the complaint is lodged in the West it doesn’t make sense to make someone travel from say – the South or the East. Then we pick and choose people to send and only then those people get to know about a particular complaint. Because the fewer people know, the better. The logistics part of this is well taken care of. In fact, we encourage that ideally, a POSH complaint be written directly to the committee and not be sent through the HR. A of lot of the time it happens so that the HR in every region varies….again, it’s about maturity right? And ultimately, every individual has their own way of handling things, right?

Q: Coming back to PoSH, is there a process that a person can take recourse to if they aren’t sure about what they experienced qualifies as harassment?

A: Our email ID for the POSH committee is zerotolerance@timesinternet.in which effectively wants to send out a message that whether an incident qualifies as sexual harassment or not, it doesn’t matter. If you believe you have been wronged or if you believe that there is an issue which needs to be raised, please raise it. We, as a committee, will come to help you and support you. Obviously if it doesn’t fall into the category of POSH, we will communicate it back to you once we have had a chat with you, had a chat with the accused or the alleged. We don’t close anything on mail or first-hand communication, we hold an enquiry or rather a pre-enquiry. Only if it qualifies as POSH do we move it to the POSH bucket.

If not, we move it back to HR saying that it’s an employee-manager issue or an incentive miscalculation issue. Because you can colour the same thing in different ways. And we do it very openly once all parties are involved. Of course, it’s confidential but by now, the concerned parties are involved. We are clear and upfront about it and if it falls under the POSH bucket, proper protocol is followed and we close it within a 90-day time period.

Our email ID for the POSH committee is zerotolerance@timesinternet.in which effectively wants to send out a message that whether an incident qualifies as sexual harassment or not, it doesn’t matter. If you believe you have been wronged or if you believe that there is an issue which needs to be raised, please raise it.

Q: What happens in an employee-manager situation where the power dynamics are not the same? Are any steps taken to prevent the manager from taking any retributive action against the employee?

A:Absolutely. We are pretty flexible. We are a culture of multiple subcultures. We have 40 different products in 40 different places. We don’t really regiment a culture. We give an option to the complainant. There are two ways: either you can be on leave and stay at home, so there is no actual contact or interaction. If the role demands that the person be in office, we immediately change the reporting relationship and the working station.

Q: How do you deal with casual sexism in such a large organisation?

A: I think the larger point is sensitization and reorientation. One is the POSH orientation and the gender sensitivity that we do. But added to that, here’s what we have done. We have something called the Times Internet University which is actually a learning and development function. Through this learning and development function, we have created modules for first-time managers, people’s managers and people’s leaders. Every module has a one-hour session on issues of gender sensitivity, sexuality, sexual sensitivity. They have to cross all these training modules. Some of them are online, some of them are classroom training. Participation and attendance is mandatory. It’s about changing mindsets, it’s not really about tick marks. Only when they start doing things and it becomes a habit is when things will change. That’s how we are looking at it.

This interview was edited for length and coherence.