Monitoring employees who don't vote: Are corporates going too far?

While the initiative at one end takes concerted efforts and enables employees to exercise their fundamental right to vote, employees think it is likely to create friction. (Illustration by Suneesh Kalarickal)

As Gujarat awaits its Legislative Assembly election, agreements between companies based there and the Election Commission (EC) to monitor the “electoral participation of their workforce” has received a mixed response from industry analysts and employees.

Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer P Bharathi told The Indian Express that the election body has signed 233 MoUs (Memorandum of Understanding) that will help it enforce the guidelines of the Election Commission.

“For the first time in Gujarat, we will be monitoring the electoral participation of the workforce belonging to 1,017 industrial units,” she said.

As per the agreements, the human resources officials in these units (companies employing 100 or more workers) have been appointed as nodal officers. “They will prepare a list of employees who don’t vote and publish it on their websites or notice boards,” Bharathi told the newspaper.

Violation of the right to privacy? 

HR expert Gautam Ghosh thinks this is not a well-thought-out move. He believes companies can encourage employees to vote and give them leave for it.

“Publishing names of people who did not vote for whatever reason is going too far and might be a violation of the right to privacy," Ghosh added.

While the initiative at one end takes concerted efforts and enables employees to exercise their fundamental right to vote, employees think it is likely to create friction at the other end by making this process a compulsion.

“Monitoring participation and calling out ones who chose to exempt themselves from this closely becomes surveillance and curtails employees' choices and decision to undertake it voluntarily; or the lack thereof,” says Antara Khaund, a Bengaluru-based PR professional.

She believes that alternatives need to be looked into to ensure greater participation in the voting/electoral process from an organisational level. “Monitoring can and should be mitigated.”

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However, sensing the potential aftermath of the initiative, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Gujarat said MoUs are signed in the form of appeals for increasing registration and voter turnout and establishing Voter Awareness Forums in their organisations. “Name and shame have never been our intention.”

MOUs are signed in form of appeal for increasing registration and Voter turnout, establish Voter Awareness Forum in their organisations. Name and shame has never been our intentions@ECISVEEP @IndianExpress @timesofindia#Gujarat #ECI #FactsMatter #GujaratElections2022 #SVEEP

— Chief Electoral Officer, Gujarat (@CEOGujarat) October 18, 2022

A step in the right direction?

Where HR experts and employees term the initiative unnecessary, labour activists feel the move might bring a much-needed change in organisations’ behaviour when providing leaves during polls.

According to Section 135B of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, “Every person employed in any business, trade, industrial undertaking or any other establishment and entitled to vote at an election to the House of the People or the Legislative Assembly of a State shall, on the day of poll, be granted a holiday.”

“This initiative was much required by the Election Commission of India as we had seen in Maharashtra Assembly Polls in 2019 that a lot of organisations did not provide mandatory leave on polling day,” said Harpreet Singh Saluja, president of Pune-based labour union NITES.

Though the state and central governments always notify polling day as a paid holiday within the meaning of Section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, Saluja said the major issue with the workers is that they aren't getting any leave to cast vote.

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Earlier, NITES had apprised the government and filed a complaint against IT companies Zensar and Capgemini for forcing employees to work on the polling day.

“This mechanism will bring transparency and now the organisations not providing mandatory leave on the polling day will be easily caught,” Saluja added.

The 2017 Gujarat Legislative Assembly election recorded a 69 percent voter turnout and the 2019 Lok Sabha election registered a 64 percent turnout.

Do not just monitor

If one decided not to vote and making it public is taken as a negative employee experience to some, employer, organisation or HR could not be held liable, said Dr Deepak Sharma, Associate Professor at Bengaluru-based NMIMS, a management institute.

However, before such initiatives in corporate houses are taken to display names of defaulters, he suggested an awareness programme by respective HR departments must be held highlighting the necessity to cast the vote.

“Such initiatives must be linked to overall performance effectiveness as to the extent an individual carries out his duties as a citizen should count on his leadership abilities,” Sharma said.

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At the same time, Sandip Chhettri, CEO of B2B marketplace TradeIndia, says employees should be encouraged to not misuse the holiday given on polling day.

“Another good way to encourage employees to vote is to offer them reward and recognition, for example, corporations can give shopping vouchers or movie tickets to the ones who voted,” he added.