One Day Workshop on Managing Workplace Challenges and Issues of Harassment by HRDC- IAS PU
A one Day workshop on Managing Workplace Challenges and Issues of Harassment was organized by Human Resource Development Center (HRDC) on 16th February 2019 at Institute of Administrative Sciences (IAS) University of the Punjab, Lahore. A total of 41 teaching faculty and staff from PU and other universities including FCCU and UVAS participated at this workshop. Prof. Dr. Nasira Jabeen – Dean FEMS and Director IAS welcomed the participants with an opening speech where she stressed on the pressing need of raising awareness on issues relating to workplace environment due to ever evolving diversity of all sorts i.e. gender, age, cultural, social etc. to foster professional culture in organizations. Consequent sessions were facilitated by Dr. Amani Moazam and Dr. Nighat Ansari, faculty members at IAS, PU on Evolving Workplace & its challenges and Gender sensitization and dealing with issues at workplace. The underlying objective of conducting this workshop was to sensitize the participants on the significance of the challenges and to familiarize them with the Act of “Protection Against Harassment of Women At The Workplace Act 2010.” The workshop was conducted in Training of Trainers (TOT) mode where participants were supposed to conduct similar sessions in their own institute/ department for sufficient awareness raising on the issue.
Mr. Shahzad Bukhari – Gender and Development Sector Specialist talked about the root causes of harassment issues and the preventive measures. The reporting mechanism of such issues at a workplace was also discussed in the light of laws as provided in the relating Act 2010. Participants were engaged in highly interactive discussions, they shared the incidents they had experienced over the course of time and developed an understanding of the nature of harassment and guiding mechanism. The foremost purpose of understanding what comes under harassment is important so it can be consciously avoided. The closing session conducted by the psychologist – Ms. Komal Faisal covered the psychological effects of harassment on the victim and its coping strategies. Towards the end, participants shared their feedback on the learning they acquired throughout the day and requested for more visibility of the policy throughout all departments of the university with notices and boards mentioning about it and related contacts in this regard. Certificates were distributed among the participants before the closing of the workshop and souvenirs were distributed among resource persons. Prof. Jabeen appreciated the efforts of organizing team for making the workshop a success. IAS intends to conduct more in-house sessions for understanding of these challenges and invites more members from other departments of PU to join in the second cohort.
