V
V.Balasubramani
Guest
How do India’s top 100 companies fare in terms of sexual harassment?
Reporting of sexual harassment complaints has increased from 2012-13 to 2014-15, but some sectors and smaller companies might be prone to serious under-reporting
Mumbai: Last month, Tata Motors announced its decision to increase the number of women employees on the shop floor from 6% to 20% within two years. Both private players as well as the government are making efforts to encourage more Indian women to work across sectors. A recent change in law allows women to work night shifts in many sectors. These are certainly welcome efforts towards breaking the glass ceiling. But, is the quest for removing the gender gap in the workforce also reflected in terms of providing a dignified and safer working environment to women?
Mint has looked at the pattern of sexual harassment complaints in some of India’s biggest companies to answer this question. The analysis is based on information provided in 237 Business Responsibility Reports (BRR) of 79 companies for the years 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15. BRRs are mandated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India and, among other things, require disclosure on the number of women employees and the number of sexual harassment complaints since 2012-13.
While the disclosure norm applied to the biggest 100 companies, 21 have been dropped from the analysis to account for comparability problems arising out of mergers, changes in accounting year, etc. This has been done because an event like a merger/demerger would affect the number of sexual harassment complaints due to an exogenous change in the number of women employees. Similarly, changes in year mean that some companies would have a longer- or shorter-than-usual year, making other data non-comparable. Here are the major findings
Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/bGL...00-companies-fare-in-terms-of-sexual-har.html
Reporting of sexual harassment complaints has increased from 2012-13 to 2014-15, but some sectors and smaller companies might be prone to serious under-reporting
Mumbai: Last month, Tata Motors announced its decision to increase the number of women employees on the shop floor from 6% to 20% within two years. Both private players as well as the government are making efforts to encourage more Indian women to work across sectors. A recent change in law allows women to work night shifts in many sectors. These are certainly welcome efforts towards breaking the glass ceiling. But, is the quest for removing the gender gap in the workforce also reflected in terms of providing a dignified and safer working environment to women?
Mint has looked at the pattern of sexual harassment complaints in some of India’s biggest companies to answer this question. The analysis is based on information provided in 237 Business Responsibility Reports (BRR) of 79 companies for the years 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15. BRRs are mandated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India and, among other things, require disclosure on the number of women employees and the number of sexual harassment complaints since 2012-13.
While the disclosure norm applied to the biggest 100 companies, 21 have been dropped from the analysis to account for comparability problems arising out of mergers, changes in accounting year, etc. This has been done because an event like a merger/demerger would affect the number of sexual harassment complaints due to an exogenous change in the number of women employees. Similarly, changes in year mean that some companies would have a longer- or shorter-than-usual year, making other data non-comparable. Here are the major findings
Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/bGL...00-companies-fare-in-terms-of-sexual-har.html
