How to Choose a PoSH External Member for Your IC

It is 10:15 on a Monday morning when the CHRO calls the organisation’s External Member.

A complaint has just landed. The respondent is not an ordinary employee. He is one of the organisation’s senior-most business leaders, someone who has been with the company for years and has considerable influence. The complaint contains allegations spanning several months. There are WhatsApp conversations, references to meetings where no one else was present, and names of a few possible witnesses. The complainant is visibly distressed. The respondent has already indicated that the allegations are false and may have surfaced because of a recent performance-related discussion.

The leadership team wants to know what happens next.

The External Member listens patiently and then asks, “When would you like me to conduct an awareness session?”

There is nothing wrong with that question. The person may, in fact, be an excellent PoSH trainer.

But is that the person you want sitting with your Internal Committee for what could become a complex 90-day inquiry?

That brings me to a question I believe organisations should ask much before a complaint ever arrives:

What exactly are you hiring when you appoint your PoSH External Member?

A trainer? A lawyer? A consultant? Someone recommended by another CHRO? A name that completes the composition of your Internal Committee?

Or are you choosing someone who may one day have to help your IC navigate one of the most difficult people-processes your organisation will ever encounter?

I believe the External Member should be selected for that day.

Not merely for the day you constitute your IC.

A great PoSH trainer may not be a great External Member

This may sound slightly uncomfortable coming from someone who has spent years training people on PoSH, but I think it needs to be said.

Being an excellent PoSH trainer does not automatically make someone an excellent External Member.

Neither, for that matter, does being a lawyer.

Training capability is valuable. Legal knowledge is valuable. Deep familiarity with the PoSH Act is obviously important. But once you enter an inquiry room, something more is required.

You need to listen without rushing to conclusions. You need to know how to ask a difficult question without turning the inquiry into a cross-examination. You need to recognise the difference between a contradiction and a lie. You need to understand what a witness actually corroborates—and what the witness merely assumes. You need to examine documentary and circumstantial evidence. You need to appreciate workplace power dynamics without allowing those dynamics themselves to become proof of guilt.

And perhaps most importantly, you need to remain comfortable when the answer is not obvious.

Imagine a CHRO evaluating two profiles.

The first candidate has impressive qualifications, several certifications, an excellent presentation style and a long list of organisations where awareness sessions have been delivered.

The second profile may be less glamorous. But this person has sat through difficult inquiries. They have heard complainants, respondents and witnesses. They have worked with contradictory versions, electronic evidence, allegations without eyewitnesses and situations where personal relationships and professional relationships overlap. They have contributed to findings and reasoned inquiry reports. They understand what it means to disagree with fellow IC members without compromising the collective process.

Which profile tells you more about who you want beside your IC when the evidence refuses to fit neatly into either party’s version?

That is the difficulty.

Inquiry competence is remarkably difficult to identify from a CV.

Which is why I would encourage organisations to interview External Members very differently.

Instead of only asking, “How many companies are you associated with?”, try asking:

“Suppose the complainant and respondent give us two equally plausible but completely contradictory accounts. How would you approach it?”

Or, “What happens if you disagree with our Presiding Officer?”

Ask, “How do you decide whether a witness actually corroborates an allegation?”

Try this one: “If the complaint was against our CEO, would your approach change?”

Or perhaps: “When would you be comfortable telling our IC that there simply isn’t sufficient material to establish an allegation?”

And one question I consider particularly important: “Can you explain the difference between an allegation that could not be established and a malicious complaint?”

The answers will tell you far more about an External Member than the number of certificates on their profile.

Because ultimately an External Member is not there merely to know the law.

They must know how to apply it when human behaviour refuses to arrive in neat legal boxes.

Neutrality is not sitting silently in the middle

There is another misconception about the External Member’s role that deserves attention.

The External Member is not the complainant’s representative.

They are not the respondent’s defence.

And they are certainly not management’s representative inside the Internal Committee.

They are a member of a statutory inquiry body that must collectively work towards a fair, reasoned outcome.

For me, that requires a very particular kind of neutrality.

A strong External Member should be perfectly capable of saying, “We need to allow her to explain this fully,” and five minutes later saying, “We also need to give him a proper opportunity to answer this.”

There is no contradiction between those statements.

I sometimes describe this as procedural courage.

Neutrality does not mean emotional indifference. A complainant may be distressed. A respondent may be anxious about their reputation and career. Witnesses may be uncomfortable. IC members themselves may find certain allegations disturbing.

An experienced External Member should be capable of bringing empathy into that room without allowing empathy to become advocacy.

Similarly, legal knowledge should strengthen an inquiry without turning it into courtroom theatre.

Natural justice is not a favour extended to the respondent. Sensitivity is not a favour extended to the complainant. Both are essential to the credibility of the process.

This becomes particularly important when evidence is complicated.

Sexual harassment often does not occur in front of a conveniently placed independent witness. At the same time, absence of an eyewitness does not mean every allegation must therefore be accepted.

The IC has to work with the material available: contemporaneous communication, subsequent conduct, witnesses who may corroborate parts of the narrative, inconsistencies, admissions, surrounding circumstances and the inherent probabilities of competing versions.

The applicable standard is not the criminal standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt. The IC works on the preponderance of probabilities.

But saying those words is easy.

Applying that standard allegation by allegation, especially when evidence points in different directions, is where inquiry experience starts to matter.

Now imagine another situation.

An inquiry has been underway for a few weeks. Several people have been heard. A senior HR leader casually asks the External Member after a meeting:

“Off the record, where do you think this is heading?”

Perhaps management needs to make succession decisions. Perhaps the respondent occupies an important position. Perhaps leadership simply wants certainty.

What does the External Member do?

This, to me, is where independence stops being a word in an appointment letter and becomes behaviour.

The inquiry is incomplete. Evidence is still being tested. Confidentiality matters. Premature conclusions can prejudice the process.

The real test of an External Member’s independence is not whether they are external to the organisation. It is whether they can remain independent when the organisation wants something from them.

That may occasionally require saying no.

“No, that information should not be circulated.”

“No, we cannot assume that.”

“No, the respondent must be given an opportunity to answer this.”

“No, inability to establish the allegation does not automatically make the complaint malicious.”

“No, management preference cannot determine our finding.”

“No, this witness does not actually corroborate what we think they corroborate.”

“No, I don’t believe we have enough material yet to reach that conclusion.”

And, equally importantly:

“Yes, an allegation can potentially be established even when there is no eyewitness.”

If your External Member can never disagree with you, it may be worth asking how external they really are.

Look beyond the impressive numbers

I see another tendency in the market: evaluating External Members through volume.

Associated with 50 organisations.

External Member with 100 organisations.

Trained 50,000 employees.

Conducted 500 workshops.

Numbers can certainly demonstrate exposure. But they don’t tell the entire story.

Volume is a metric. Depth is a competency.

What kind of work has the person actually done?

Have they participated meaningfully in inquiries? Have they handled conflicting evidence? Have they questioned witnesses? Have they contributed to findings? Have they worked through procedural objections? Have they dealt with senior respondents? Have they ever disagreed with the rest of an IC? Have they helped an IC conclude that some allegations were established while others were not?

And have they written—or meaningfully contributed to—a good inquiry report?

Report writing, in my view, is one of the most underestimated External Member competencies.

Many people can facilitate a conversation.

Far fewer can take a complaint, response, witness testimony, documents, contradictions, admissions and circumstantial evidence and help convert them into a coherent, allegation-wise, reasoned report.

“After hearing both sides, the Committee found the respondent guilty” is not reasoning.

A defensible report should enable someone reading it to understand: What exactly was alleged? What did the respondent say? What evidence supported or contradicted the allegation? What did the Committee accept? What did it not accept? Why? And what conclusion did the IC reach on the applicable standard?

The quality of the report often reveals the quality of the inquiry that preceded it.

There are also less glamorous questions organisations should ask before appointment.

How available is the person?

An extremely accomplished External Member who cannot give you a hearing date for three weeks may create a very practical problem. The Act gives the IC a defined timeframe for completing an inquiry. More importantly, both parties deserve a process that does not drift indefinitely.

Ask about response times. Hearing availability. Continuity. Document-review capability. Report turnaround. Backup arrangements. And whether the individual you interviewed is actually the person who will participate when a complaint arrives.

Independence also deserves more thought than simply checking whether someone is employed by the company.

Are there relationships that could reasonably create a conflict? Has the person previously advised one of the parties? Is there a personal relationship with senior leadership? Are there other engagements that could affect—or appear to affect—independent judgement?

Not every professional association creates a conflict. But potential conflicts should be disclosed and considered, not discovered halfway through an inquiry.

And then there is price.

Of course organisations should negotiate responsibly. Commercial prudence matters.

But when External Members are compared almost entirely on annual fee, I sometimes wonder whether we are asking the wrong commercial question.

What exactly are we trying to save money on?

The person being appointed today may tomorrow participate in an inquiry involving careers, senior leadership, workplace trust, reputational consequences and potential legal scrutiny.

The relevant question is not whether the most expensive External Member is the best. They may not be.

The question is whether competence has been evaluated before price becomes the differentiator.

Choose them for the difficult day

At NoMeansNo, our understanding of the External Member’s role has been shaped by working across the PoSH lifecycle—not only awareness and sensitisation, but IC capability building, External Member responsibilities, inquiries, evidence, findings, recommendations and the organisational realities that follow an inquiry.

Inquiry rooms teach you things that training rooms cannot.

They teach you that two sincere people can remember the same interaction differently.

That a confident witness is not automatically an accurate witness.

That a contradiction may matter enormously—or not at all.

That power dynamics deserve attention but cannot substitute for evidence.

That empathy and neutrality can coexist.

That sometimes the correct contribution of an External Member is not another opinion, but the right question.

And that the most valuable External Member is not necessarily the person who always has an immediate answer. Sometimes it is the person experienced enough to say:

“Before we decide, I think we need to examine this further.”

Which takes me back to that Monday morning phone call.

When you appoint an External Member, you are not merely selecting someone to attend quarterly meetings or whose name can complete your IC constitution.

You are choosing someone who may one day sit across the table from your most junior employee.

Your most senior executive.

Perhaps even your CEO.

They may have to listen to a deeply distressed complainant while remaining objective. They may have to protect a respondent’s right to be heard when the organisation has already formed an opinion. They may have to question a witness whose evidence changes the direction of an inquiry. They may have to disagree with your Presiding Officer. They may have to tell management that certain information cannot be shared.

And ultimately, they may have to put their name to a finding that the organisation, the complainant or the respondent does not like.

Choose your External Member for that day. Not merely for the day you constitute your IC.

At NoMeansNo, that is how we have come to view the role. The value of an External Member is rarely tested when everything is straightforward. It becomes visible when the facts become uncomfortable, the evidence becomes complicated, the stakes become high and the organisation needs an independent voice in the room.

Because the External Member you appoint when there is no complaint may eventually help determine the credibility of your organisation’s response when there is one.

Legal reference: Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 — India Code.