The movement that struck sometime back has sure caused a furore. The ugly side of many professions came forward and many mighty men were strongly accused of sexual misconduct. The MeToo movement emerged with the intention of giving women a medium to voice out the horrifying experiences that they underwent. A leading market and research company, conducted a study amongst urban Indians for their views on the MeToo campaign. The opinion poll was conducted in prominent Indian metros including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Chennai. Talking to professionals, we find out how this movement has changed the atmosphere at their workplaces.
Entrepreneur Sachith Kumar Rai has ensured that his team is well equipped to deal with such situations.
He says, “Ever since the MeToo movement hit, the first thing that we did was to get ourselves POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harrasment) trained. Since over 80 percent of our employees are females, it was very important to educated them as to what POSH is, and who they should address issues, when to file an FIR, how to take it up with the HR. We have also identified two committee member who have access to a special email id where the employees can send their grievances.”
The MeToo movement has brought about a change in the way men interact with women now. city based professional Anusha Raman says, “With the MeToo movement gaining prominence, I feel companies need to educate their employees on the policies that are already in place. Men too have become a little cautious after MeToo movement as men in corporate do not want o be identified with this. We have something called ER issues where the risk manager conducts sessions with regards to MeToo and sexual harassment. We have also got external people to come and talk about such topics. I have also seen men become more cautious about their interaction with women.”
HR manager Jai Ram Singh says, “Even before the MeToo movement came, a very clear policy and mechanism was already in place. I feel that before any action is taken, a proper investigation needs to be done. As sometimes, people tend to misinterpret situations. We have got people to walk to women creating awareness as who to go about the entire process of reporting incidents, talk about it etc. From time to time we have interacted with the female employees, taking their opinion on topics on how issues should be handled. Which I feel is very important.”
Psychologist Anika C says, “This is a very sensitive issue, as there is trauma involved which could be a highly stressful situation for an individual to deal with.This has caused high impact in workplace with rising issues of under performance, lack of motivation to perform, lack of socialisation and personal growth. People to have become more skeptical about talking to women as there is a fine line between sexual harassment and harmless flirting can be misinterpreted.”
