POSH Awareness Isn’t Impact: What Your Data Should Show

THE BLUESKYVIEW
Evidence. Impact. Better Decisions.

Does “Feeling Safe” Mean Your Workplace-Safety Programme Is Creating Impact?

91% of women surveyed nationally call their workplace safe by day. Only 47% know whether their organisation has a POSH policy. Just 35% of SHe-Box complaints had been resolved as of February 2026.

India’s workplace-safety conversation is moving from perception to protection. But for corporates investing in POSH awareness and workplace-safety programmes, there is another question that deserves attention:

Is a positive perception of safety enough to demonstrate impact?

• An employee saying they feel safe is a perception.
• An employee knowing how to report harassment is POSH awareness.
• An employee who trusts the mechanism and would actually use it is closer to a meaningful outcome.

And this is where CSR and workplace-safety impact assessment becomes important.

India’s workplace-safety data is changing. The gap between how safe employees feel and how well the reporting system actually works is increasingly visible.

• The NARI 2025 survey by the National Commission for Women found that 91% of women surveyed nationally described their workplace as safe by day, while only 47% knew whether their organisation had a POSH policy.
• More recently, government data on the SHe-Box portal showed just over a third of registered complaints had been resolved as of February 2026, even as complaint volumes rose.

These developments point to an important shift: workplace safety is increasingly being recognised not simply as a perception score, but as a question of systems, trust and institutional responsiveness.

For companies, that creates an opportunity—but also a measurement challenge.

Does a workplace-safety programme qualify as a Schedule VII CSR activity?

POSH compliance is a statutory obligation under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, not itself a CSR activity. Under Rule 2(1)(d)(iv) of the Companies (CSR Policy) Rules, 2014, activities benefiting employees of the company are excluded from the definition of CSR

A robust POSH Program demonstrates business responsibility. However, broader gender-safety and women’s-empowerment initiatives that benefit the public—rather than employees alone—can fall within Schedule VII, Item (iii) of the Companies Act, 2013, which covers promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.

. This matters when a company reports statutory POSH compliance—an employee-only obligation—as if it were a CSR initiative.

What difference is your workplace-safety initiative making?

Most organisations begin their measurement journey by asking:

“Do employees feel safe?”

We believe the better question is:

“What has changed in the workplace, and what evidence demonstrates that change?”

These are useful programme metrics.

The further we move along this monitoring and evaluation chain, the more meaningful-and more demanding – the evidence needs to become.

• A perception survey tells us how employees feel.
• An awareness assessment tells us whether employees understand the system.
• Reporting and resolution data tells us how the mechanism actually functions.
• Follow-up evidence can help us understand whether the intervention contributed to meaningful change.

Perception becomes evidence. Evidence becomes understanding. And understanding becomes decision-making.

Five Questions a Good Workplace-Safety Programme should answer:

Sometimes the most valuable finding is not that employees feel safe. It is discovering where the system remains weak, who lacks awareness, and what prevents employees from using the mechanisms available to them. Impact assessment creates value when it makes these differences visible – and helps decision-makers act on them.

A strong assessment should therefore be capable of producing uncomfortable findings as well as positive ones.

• If perception scores are high but awareness of the reporting mechanism is low, that is important.
• If complaints are being filed but not resolved within the statutory timeline, that is important.
• If awareness or trust differs sharply across employee groups or locations, that is important.

At BlueSkyCSR, this is the lens we bring to CSR impact assessment. We look beyond headline perception scores to examine programme design, implementation, stakeholder experiences, outcomes and evidence of impact. Talk to BlueSkyCSR about designing an assessment around the decisions your evidence needs to inform.

Sources

1. National Commission for Women, Government of India. National Annual Report and Index on Women’s Safety (NARI), 2025, released 28 August 2025; survey of 12,770 women across 31 cities; 91% of women described their workplace as safe by day, 47% were aware of their organisation’s POSH policy.
2. Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India. SHe-Box portal complaint and resolution data, reported February 2026.
3. Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India. Companies Act, 2013 — Section 135 and Schedule VII, Item (iii), promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment.
4. Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India. FAQ on Corporate Social Responsibility, including Rule 2(1)(d) exclusions relating to activities benefiting employees.
5. Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India. Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, statutory POSH obligations.