At TrustIn, we believe everyone should feel safe and empowered to pursue their goals. And we know this sense of safety matters at the workplace- companies and college campuses- where we spend most of our time.

We’re forging a meaningful path towards this with secure, AI powered legal tech to address workplace misconduct. Starting with the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) legislation, our platform includes all labour, civil, and service laws to enable safety at scale.

Why does this matter?

Upholding safety, labor, civil, and service laws at the workplace is an imperative for organizations. In the case of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment legal implementation, half of Internal Committee (IC) members, vested with the powers of a civil court to adjudicate workplace misconduct, report feeling untrained and unsure of their verdict, stretched for time due to full time jobs, and run the risk of being sued for noncompliance with a complex, opaque legal process.

Economic loss for large Indian companies has ranged from $0.3–5M, with legal liability, loss of business licenses, reputational damage, and loss of employees in cases of POSH noncompliance.

On the other hand, less than 20% of Indian employees report workplace misconduct, and 80% of them choose to quit instead. Worldwide, common aspects of sexual harassment cases appear as turnkey solutions for safety, especially an employee’s confidence in a company’s grievance redressal process (Reich et al, 2010). Misconduct of any kind- ranging from harassment to abuse- is more likely to go unresolved when the perpetrator is a high performer and when the incident goes unreported (Summers, 1996).

This makes a transparent legal tech platform such as TrustIn imperative to bolster workplace safety and culture. We provide end to end POSH compliance by removing barriers to case adjudication and complaint escalation.

Here’s what Abhaya, our POSH advisor, shared about her experience with the TrustIn solution.

“TrustIn’s vision is powerful because it leverages both transparency and compliance to empower more people to come forward and report sexual harassment, while enabling Internal Committees to remain accountable.

The TrustIn platform frees up crucial mind space for IC members, allowing them to focus on a fair and robust investigation”

-Abhaya Tatavarti, Lead Consultant for Prevention of Sexual Harassment, Parity Consulting

We’re currently in the beta pilot stage, and conducted hundreds of rounds of usability testing across stakeholder groups, resulting in three major design revamps and a comprehensive feature prioritization map.

Here’s a snapshot of the data from our usability tests. We’re reworking focus features and user journeys based on the feedback we’ve received.

TrustIn For Enterprises

We empower companies to move from intention to implementation of safety policies, ensuring a 100% compliant case adjudication a 100% of the time.

With our paperless, automated documentation and communication systems, Internal Committees can while reduce average case adjudication and reporting time by 15 hours, saving up to $75K annually while mitigating any risk of noncompliance.

Internal Committee members' feedback on the TrustIn prototype

TrustIn For Employees

We empower employees to move from awareness to access of their rights, by providing a confidential complaint escalation system with support resources and real time updates. Our support dashboards ensure procedural equity for both complainants and respondents of active cases.

Employee and user feedback on the TrustIn prototype

What We've Learned

As we continue to evolve our product, here are some of the big takeaways we’re incorporating:

1. Building an AI engine for objective, legally compliant reports and recommendations

2. Integrating upskilling tools for IC members to conduct impartial investigations with legal scientific temper

3. Evolving admin and superadmin dashboards to efficiently manage cases across teams, geographies, IC capability, and complaint severity

4. Aggregating support resources via chatbot access for both employees and IC members

5. Providing modular solutions that can be personalized for every company's safety policies.

With best in class legal and tech frameworks, we’re empowering companies to implement a culture of safety, confidentiality, and compliance. We’re also integrating unbiased support structures that enable all employees to educate, escalate, and advocate for themselves.

To learn more about us and our solution, visit our website at https://www.trustin.co.in or drop us a line at hello@trustin.co.in. We’d love to get your feedback on our beta product, have you sign up for our demo or newsletter, and explore how we can collaborate.

We’re especially interested in hearing from you if you’re in HR, D&I, law, your company/ college Internal Committee, or a POSH specialist (both institutional and individual).

References

EY. (2015). Fostering Safe Workplaces. Retrieved from http://ficci.in/spdocument/20672/Fostering-safe.pdf

Thomson Reuters Foundation. (2018). Thomson Reuters Foundation annual poll. The World’s Most Dangerous Countries for Women. Retrieved from https://poll2018.trust.org/

LocalCircles — Social Media for Communities, Local Social Media Network. (2018). Retrieved August 23, 2019, from https://www.localcircles.com/a/

(2018, October 23). Me Too Movement in India: #MeToo’s Twitter gatekeepers power a people’s campaign in India: India News — Times of India. Retrieved from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/metoos-twitter-gatekeepers-power-a-peoples-campaign-in-india/articleshow/66328622.cms

Hershcovis, M. S., Parker, S. K., & Reich, T. C. (2010). The moderating effect of equal opportunity support and confidence in grievance procedures on sexual harassment from different perpetrators. Journal of Business Ethics, 92, 415–432.

Summers, R. J. (1996). The effect of harasser performance status and complainant tolerance on reactions to a complaint of sexual harassment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 49, 53–67.