The recent death of a 26-year-old Ernst & Young employee, merely four months after joining the company has cast a light on the internal fabrics of corporates. Now, a freelance technical writer has made allegations about her time at the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and the sexual harassment she endured by her team leader.
There is no denying that the structure of corporate India needs to be looked at and improved. With several unregulated areas, a culture of overwork, burnout, depression, and the rise of other mental health issues along with physical issues too, there does need to be an overhaul of the current system.
What Did The Woman Say?
An X/Twitter user @romaticize claimed that while she was at the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) her team leader was allegedly sexually harassing her and other freshers.
On 19 September 2024, she posted about how despite the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 or the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at the Workplace (POSH) Act complaint a satisfactory verdict was not met.
She wrote, “When I was a fresher in TCS on a contract bond for a year while my Team Lead was s*xually harassing me & other freshers along with inundating us with work pressure due to our resistance to him, I had the “choice” of paying back TCS more money than I earned or keep working w him.”
She further wrote how “Despite having a highly supportive family and friends, I still fell into tunnel vision and wondered if my life was over and if it would be so awful to end it all.
Corporate India is fked up in so many ways and it feels like you are going insane because on the outset your offices look like the most accommodating & luxurious environments, but at the same time you as a fresher are at the mercy of narcissistic managers and unregulated hours and pressure. HRs are a joke.”
She also revealed, “To clarify, yes I filed a POSH complaint. No one within the project cooperated, other girls were afraid of losing their jobs and senior male colleagues were cowards. Had to go through humiliating interrogations with senior HRs.
The company sat on the complaint for over a month saying that there was “no evidence” and could not act against him. Finally as a last desperate act I had to tell them about another fresher who was sent inappropriate texts by him. It was only then that they took the case.”
She ended by stating, “He wasn’t even fired simply transferred to another office near his hometown lol. Not one single colleague had the solidarity to file the complaint with me.”
Read More: These Are Reasons Why Employees Stay At A Company, Salary Is Not One Of Them
This is not the only such instance happening in TCS, considering a report by India CSR that revealed how there has been a concerning increase in the number of sexual harassment complaints filed under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH).
As per the report, FY 2023-24 saw around 110 complaints being registered, a much higher number compared to 2022-23 which was just 49.
The report claims that the reason for the rise is the “increased awareness about the issue within the company” along with a rise being seen in “the proportion of complaints that were upheld”.
According to the report, “This indicates not only an increase in reporting but also an effective process for handling these complaints at TCS.”
TC, however, is not the only one seeing this phenomenon with many of India’s largest companies reporting a sharp increase in sexual harassment complaints for FY24.
According to an August 2024 report by The Economic Times, “There has been a 40.4% increase in number of complaints of sexual harassment (up by 268) filed during last fiscal.”
The data looks at BSE 30 companies and was collected by Complykaro for ET. In FY24, the data shows 932 sexual harassment complaints were reported in these companies whereas FY23 saw 664 complaints being registered.
Banking and technology sectors saw the most increase with ICICI Bank registering the highest increase with 133 cases reported in FY24, with FY23 and FT22 seeing 43 and 46 complaints respectively.
Vishal Kedia, PoSH expert, Complykaro commenting on this said, “This indicates increased awareness among employees which is leading to real change as more women are coming forward and lodging complaints.”
Smita Shetty Kapoor, CEO of Kelp, a PoSH advisory firm also said, “Harassment cases were there earlier too but what has changed is the increase in awareness among women as well as the companies, which is leading to more such cases being reported.”
While it is surely good to see that more and more women and other employees are coming forward regarding inappropriate and unprofessional behaviour, it is also necessary that the companies not only uphold the complaints but take necessary action where needed.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: The Economic Times, India CSR, Livemint
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: TCS, TCS fresher, TCS company, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Consultancy Services employee, employee, sexual harassment, team leader, workplace, workplace harassment, tcs sexual harassment
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