Remote work significantly reduces harassment for nonbinary and younger workers.Source: Mikael Blomkvist/pexels
Sexual harassment in the workplace often stems from power imbalances, where those in higher positions leverage their authority to exploit subordinates. In an office setting, these dynamics are more pronounced due to frequent, unsupervised interactions. Remote work disrupts these power dynamics by reducing opportunities for in-person coercion and creating a digital trail for communications, which can serve as evidence in harassment cases.
However, it’s not like TCS, which has over 600,000 employees, lacks education on sexual harassment. Clearly, the transition from remote work to full-time RTO made a drastic difference, more than doubling sexual harassment cases—in line with the 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll.that women file about 80% of sexual harassment cases, with a noticeable spike following the #MeToo movement and a slight decrease during the pandemic.