Coffee growers brew up a campaign against sexual harassment at workplace on International Coffee Day

International Coffee Day is celebrated every year on 1st October. It is a day to raise awareness for the plight of the coffee growers.

Tata Coffee Ltd has focussed this year on alleviating some of the social ills that beset coffee plantation workers. A major focus area has been the prevention of sexual harassment of women at the workplace.

Tata Coffee’s CHRO, Priyanka Gidwani, decided to do something different this year. She brought on board Be.artsy, a social awareness enterprise, to draw the attention of the employees in the corporate office and at the plantations on prevention of sexual harassment, and to explain the avenues for redressal in a simple and practical fashion.

Be.artsy, which has delivered POSH (prevention of sexual harassment) interventions in companies like Pepsico India, Air India, American Express, Mediatek,G+D, British Telecom, took up the challenge in May this year to raise awareness, especially amongst the blue-collar Tata Coffee employees at Polibetta, Gubgul, Mylemoney, Ubban and Kushal Nagar (Karnataka); Valparai, Theni (Tamil Nadu); and Toopran (Telangana). Although Be.artsy’s Founder Shikha Mittal says, “When Tata Coffee requested me to lead all POSH sessions for plantations, I liked the idea of once again taking a direct role in influencing people. I missed creating positive social impact at a grass root level.”

By August 1176 Tata Coffee employees had taken a pledge to say “IT’S NOT OK” to Sexual Harassment at the workplace and beyond, work with unity, and respect one and another. The programme covered eight plantations and was delivered in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. This is a first for Tata Coffee. “This was the first time we looked at the issue from the perspective of prevention,” says Raman one of the Tata Coffee employees at Ubban estate. “We have often been told about the redressal methods, but this was something new for us. Also, the training in the form of a Kannada street play made it meaningful and easy to understand. It was so interesting that I am now able to retain so much more of the training.”

Shikha Mittal has always felt that while addressing the adult workforce is necessary, the real change will come when children grow up with the knowledge that harassment of any type is not acceptable socially. Some Tata Coffee employees volunteered to conduct awareness programs at a local school.

Tata Coffee, too, is thrilled with the results. The CHRO says: “The collaboration has been highly engaging and impactful for us at Tata Coffee at the Corporate office. Our employees have received the interventions well and have now opened up much more. It has helped us build transparency and encouraged our employees to speak their point of view on various topics. We have also just completed batches for our blue collar workers in the estates in local language.”

On International Coffee Day, coffee growers, too, can now wake up and smell the coffee!