What happens when someone says, “I don’t want to make this formal”?

Or “I don’t want any trouble. I just needed to get it out of my system.”

That sentence or something close to it, is where most workplace safety breaks. Not in a policy, or in an Internal Committee inquiry. But in a corridors, in hushed coffee breaks, in the ten seconds after a person decides to say something for the first time.

The IC exists for what happens after someone crosses that threshold. ICs exist to provide redressal and protection from retaliation. But most people, most of the time, never cross this threshold.

The machinery we built and what it doesn’t cover

Most organisations I connect with are confident that they have got POSH compliance under control. They have complied with what the act says- an IC in place, the annual training, the ninety-day inquiry timeline, the composition of the committee, the format of the written complaint.

It’s evidence that our systems are built to offer redressal, not to create an environment where every one feels they can speak up and make it formal, and if they do, they will be heard, and the matter will be resolved.

And that is why, many keep silent.

And that is why the full purpose of the act- prevention, protection, prohibition and redressal, remains unfulfilled even 13 years after implementation.

What that moment is actually asking of you?

We misread this moment of disclosure constantly. When someone tells a manager or a colleague that something happened, and immediately adds that they don’t want it to become an issue, they are are actually silently seeking validation and permission. They’re testing something narrower: can the person in front of them hold what’s just been said, without dismissing it as nothing ? Is the person in front going to be the rock solid support that they need to cross the threshold?

Most of us get this moment wrong. Since the person does not want ‘to make an issue’, we sympathise and gently tell them to let go. Sometimes, we question- is it such a big deal? Sometimes we opine- never heard anything like this about him. And even sigh with relief when the conversation ends.

But that is where trust and confidence gets broken.

Unconsciously we have signalled silence is better than speaking up. We have signalled that it is ok to let it go. We have normalised wrong doing. And in the process silenced several others who might have spoken.

Both Prevention and Prohibition fail.

The promise you you should and shouldn’t make.

Here’s where most well-meaning managers slip and it happens entirely out of kindness.

They say, “Don’t worry, this stays between us.” The instinct makes sense. But once a manager knows something that could constitute harassment, Indian law and most organisational policy create a real obligation to act. “This stays between us” is often a promise you can’t keep.

The more honest move, the one that actually respects the person in front of you, is to tell them plainly that they should connect with someone with the IC. You should tell them that they should not discuss with other colleagues as this can at a later stage become a challenge for confidentiality. You shouldn’t try to judge or evaluate. You should simply listen, and nudge in the right direction. Offer support and confidentiality.

What the rising numbers might actually mean

IT services and banking alone account for most of the sharp rise in complaint numbers across India’s listed companies, complaints nearly tripling in some sectors between FY22 and FY25.

So what does that rise actually mean?

More harassment?  Or more people finally trusting a system enough to enter it formally? Probably both and probably unevenly. Trust isn’t spread evenly across a company. It flourishes wherever leaders and managers have visibly, consistently, unglamorously done right by the people who came forward before.

The closely guarded secret

If you actually want to know how a company handles this moment, don’t read the POSH policy. Look at who employees informally go to when something happens, and I mean actually map it, not assume it. In almost every organisation I’ve worked with, that list is short, three or four names and it’s almost never the officially designated first point of contact. It’s whoever has, over years, earned a reputation for taking the right call.

Sometimes that’s a manager. Sometimes it’s someone in a completely unrelated function who has nothing to do with POSH on paper.

Organisations often don’t know who’s on that list for their own workforce, which means they’re relying entirely on the judgment of people they’ve never trained, never briefed, and never thought to ask.

A mature POSH ecosystem prepares people for these conversations too. It also knows, by name, who’s already having them.

Link –  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/first-disclosure-sonica-aron-she-her-hers–munsc/