Does POSH Apply on Work Trips, Client Sites, and Off-Site Events?

"It happened at the client's office, not ours — is that even our problem?" This is one of the most common, and most consequential, misunderstandings employers have about the POSH Act. The answer is almost always yes, it is your problem, because the Act's definition of "workplace" was deliberately drafted to follow the employee, not just the employer's four walls.

How the Act defines "workplace"

Section 2(o) of the POSH Act defines workplace to include not just the primary place of employment, but also any place visited by the employee arising out of or during the course of employment, including transportation provided by the employer for undertaking such a journey. This is a deliberately expansive definition, and the Vishaka Guidelines that preceded the Act — and which the Supreme Court read into workplace protections even before 2013 — took the same broad view.

In practical terms, this means the following situations are squarely within scope:

• A client's office, factory, or premises where your employee is deputed or visiting for work.
• Business travel — flights, trains, cabs, and hotels booked for work purposes.
• Offsite events, team retreats, conferences, and industry events attended in an official capacity.
• Work-related social events — client dinners, celebratory parties, or informal gatherings that are still connected to the employment relationship.
• Company-arranged transport, including cabs provided for late-night shifts.

Why "it wasn't on our premises" is not a valid defence

Employers sometimes assume liability is limited to the physical office because that's where their IC "lives." But the employer's obligation under Section 19 to provide a safe working environment isn't premises-bound — it follows the employment relationship wherever work takes the employee. An Internal Committee has jurisdiction to inquire into a complaint arising from a client site visit or an offsite event exactly as it would for an incident in the office corridor, provided the connection to employment is established.

What changes when the respondent is not your employee

A genuinely tricky scenario arises when the alleged harasser is not your employee at all — a client's staff member, a vendor representative, or a third party at a shared venue. The complainant's own employer still has obligations here: under Section 19, the employer must provide assistance to the woman if she chooses to file a complaint against a third party, and the IC can inquire into the matter even where the respondent isn't on the company's own payroll, though the practical remedies available (like termination) differ significantly when the respondent isn't an employee.

We cover this exact scenario — including what remedies are realistically available — in our detailed post on vendors, clients, and outsiders as respondents.

Offsite events and the "informal" trap

A recurring pattern in the incidents we see: harassment occurring not during the structured part of an offsite (workshops, presentations) but during the unstructured social component — a dinner, a party, a late-night gathering at the venue. Employers sometimes wrongly assume the informal, after-hours nature of these interactions places them outside the scope of "workplace." Tribunals have not accepted this distinction. If the event itself was organised or sponsored in connection with employment, the informal hours within it remain covered, particularly where alcohol was served by the employer or attendance was effectively expected of employees.

Employers running annual offsites, sales conferences, or team retreats should treat the entire duration — not just the "official" agenda — as within the ambit of their POSH obligations, and should brief the IC and event organisers accordingly before the event, not after an incident occurs.

What this means for your policy and training

A POSH policy that only addresses "in-office" conduct is incomplete and, frankly, out of step with how the Act has been interpreted. We recommend policies and training explicitly name business travel, client visits, and offsite events as covered situations, so employees — particularly those who travel frequently or work client-facing roles — understand their protection isn't confined to the building they normally sit in. Our post on mandatory POSH training frequency and best practices goes into how to structure this coverage effectively.

Practical steps for employers with a mobile or client-facing workforce

• Explicitly extend your POSH policy's defined scope to travel, client sites, and company-sponsored events, in writing.
• Brief travelling and client-facing employees on how to report an incident that occurs off-premises, including after hours.
• For company-sponsored offsites, appoint a designated point of contact (ideally an IC member) reachable throughout the event.
• Maintain travel and deputation records — they become important evidence in establishing that an incident occurred "during the course of employment."

Key takeaway

Geography does not limit your POSH obligations — the employment relationship does. If your employee is somewhere because of their job, the protections and your obligations as an employer travel with them. Treating "not on our premises" as a shield is one of the more common — and legally unsound — assumptions we see corporates make.