Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?

#361

Post by Nadya » Tue, May 10, 2016, 10:19 PM UTC

jasonpeacock wrote: post #341

nlh wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What often happens is that the person who reports harassment is then punished because people no longer want to talk to her. They keep her out of the loop on casual stuff, but lots of professional discussions happen in casual contexts. Over time, she gets iced out for reporting illegal behavior. I think this really depends on your team dynamic, and I wouldn't necessarily be concerned about this point (as valid as it…

Alas, you don't know what will happen until it does happen. It could be as simple as "Wow, Joe reported Bob for sexual harassment, but Bob didn't do anything wrong - I was there. Now I have to be extra-careful around Joe to avoid getting reported myself!" And there you go - Joe is now suffering from "retaliation" and being treated special for speaking up.

That is already happening in many professional contexts though - and without Joe ever having to speak up about anything.

Male professors avoid being alone with female students. Male colleagues refuse to work with or to a lesser extent, refuse to be friendly on any sort of casual level with female colleagues entirely just because of the small risk that an accusation could cost them their job/career. This fear actively harms both genders.

Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?

#362

Post by maxcan » Tue, May 10, 2016, 10:20 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #351

maxcan wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally believe that short of committing a felony, every employee gets a warning first. I'm not going to be held hostage by the abstract threat of frivolous lawsuits. And yes, with everything including the PIP being documented, that would be a frivolous lawsuit.

Twice in my career I've seen sexual harassment claims raised at a company I worked for after someone departed the company, and twice I've been led to believe the result was a very large cash settlement for the accuser. (Neither case occurred in a company I was in management at). If your firm has any money in the bank at all, the accuser's lawyer will take the case on contingency, knowing both that you are unlikely to…

Yeah, my point is that there are better ways to avoid lawsuits than just firing anyone the minute someone shows an inappropriate text message.

Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?

#363

Post by tptacek » Tue, May 10, 2016, 10:22 PM UTC

maxcan wrote: post #362

tptacek wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twice in my career I've seen sexual harassment claims raised at a company I worked for after someone departed the company, and twice I've been led to believe the result was a very large cash settlement for the accuser. (Neither case occurred in a company I was in management at). If your firm has any money in the bank at all, the accuser's lawyer will take the case on contingency, knowing both that you are unlikely to…

Yeah, my point is that there are better ways to avoid lawsuits than just firing anyone the minute someone shows an inappropriate text message.

This isn't responsive to what I just wrote. Not terminating is what risks the lawsuit. Terminating forecloses on that lawsuit.

Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?

#364

Post by rmason » Tue, May 10, 2016, 10:22 PM UTC

By all means see a lawyer. Have the lawyer draw up an agreement of severance where he agrees not to contest the firing and not share any trade secrets.

Then immediately let him go and offer him 3-4 months of severance. Generous enough that he will sign it and immediately get out of your life. Then buy a sexual harassment video course that all new hires are required to view on their first day. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?

#365

Post by Frozenlock » Tue, May 10, 2016, 10:24 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #266

rdiddly wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ding ding ding, first cogent, non-hysterical, mature comment on the page! Edit: In the spirit of trying to actually add some worthwhile content in my comment: Harassment sucks, just like not knowing a core skill of one's job, sucks. But demanding perfection in either case is not a reasonable approach. When someone joins, and they don't meet expectations, you have to tell them they didn't meet expectations, show them…

Refusing to tolerate unwelcome, overt, and repeated workplace sexual advances isn't a demand for perfection; it's a demand for a minimal standard of professional conduct. It's right there on the list along with "don't steal, don't try to finagle kickbacks from suppliers, don't physically threaten employees" and so on. There are better places for bizdev and sales people to learn professionalism than in depositions.

You have a pretty strong opinion in this thread considering the lack of information we have.

In this particular reply, all the 4 things you mentioned are NOT happening in the story. (At least by what we know.)

Unwelcome: We don't know if it was unwelcome. She even agreed to move to another communication medium (one which wasn't officially work related.)

Overt: It was on their own time, on a completely distinct communication medium. I don't see how more COVERT it could be.

Repeated: Again, from what we know, this was on a single weekend. He called her a milf, asked if he could tell her a secret and she refused. That's it. If he's not asking again and again, it's not repeated.

Workplace sexual advances: That's not in the workplace, nor on the company's time.

There's not much we can conclude without knowing more.

Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?

#366

Post by Mz » Tue, May 10, 2016, 10:25 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #342

Mz wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's a nice story, but I don't see how an attempt at intentional malicious sabotage of their previous employer is "similar" to this.

It's not a "story", but a real thing that happened to me. It's similar because the OP needs to fire the employee now, and document everything. And maybe get a lawyer too.

I meant story as in anecdote, not as in tall tale.

Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?

#367

Post by exclusiv » Tue, May 10, 2016, 10:28 PM UTC

joantune wrote: post #127

What happened to no harm no foul and a slap on the wrist this time and a clear policy to everyone that if it happens again by anyone, it won't be tolerated. Why do you guys jump to the extremes? I'm not in the US lawyer up of A though, but common sense should apply. That said, ask a lawyer first, because clearly that is the land where we get our funny 'news' of 'someone when to court because of ludicrous action X, an…

Yes it wasn't egregious, but I've learned that if clients or employees cause problems early, the chances of it working out is very slim.

Plus, a big part of being successful in biz dev is to be able to read people and interact professionally. This person is new and to do what they did shows their 1) arrogance and 2) inability to read people.

Biz dev generally means investing in that person financially for some time before getting a return as it takes time for them to ramp up and close deals. Do you want to invest in someone like that and hope they'll change in fit your culture or just move on?

Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?

#368

Post by baconner » Tue, May 10, 2016, 10:29 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #6

patio11 wrote: post #3

Lawyer lawyer lawyer LAWYER lawyer LAWYER . I think the consensus in the grown-up business world is "fire immediately for cause." I would bet substantial money that when you lawyer lawyer lawyer they will advise you to do that and document the heck out of it. The calculus is really, really simple: if you don't, then you will with probability approaching one get this incident or a similar incident cited during a threa…

In addition to patio11's excellent advice it's time to get some training on this. Possibly the lawyer you're going to hire can do this. Possibly they can refer you to someone appropriate. There are very well established procedures for how to deal with this sort of thing. You need to know them. Depending on the size of your company your managers might need to know them too. Hacker News is not the best place to learn t…

Also to add to this great advice when you do have workplace harassment prevention, response training one of the things that will emphasize is that the response can't be purely up to the victim. A good training on this will help you explain this necessity to an employee in this circumstance.

Basically

1. You've got the victim's back and will be carefully watching for any form of reprisals which won't be tolerated. Further you will not share any information about the specifics with the rest of the group even though you may have to address the issue generally with them.

2. But... You also have to take action as a responsible manager even if they don't want you to because you have to protect other employees from harassment by the same person. You also have a responsibility to the company to take action because not doing so can open the business up to serious liability if it happens again and you didn't do something.

I think hitting a first serious hr issue like this is a part of the regular part of growing up for many startups. If you don't yet have a clear harassment policy in place, or don't have a lawyer advising you on these kind of issues, or haven't enacted any kind of regular training on harassment prevention and response there's no time like the present to get that done.

ps. My company uses an online course from this company for yearly harassment prevention training. The production value is a bit cheesy, but very informative your first time through: http://www.navexglobal.com/en-us/issues/harrassment-discrimi... I'm sure there are tons of other options.

Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?

#369

Post by tptacek » Tue, May 10, 2016, 10:30 PM UTC

Frozenlock wrote: post #365

tptacek wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refusing to tolerate unwelcome, overt, and repeated workplace sexual advances isn't a demand for perfection; it's a demand for a minimal standard of professional conduct. It's right there on the list along with "don't steal, don't try to finagle kickbacks from suppliers, don't physically threaten employees" and so on. There are better places for bizdev and sales people to learn professionalism than in depositions.

You have a pretty strong opinion in this thread considering the lack of information we have. In this particular reply, all the 4 things you mentioned are NOT happening in the story. (At least by what we know.) Unwelcome: We don't know if it was unwelcome. She even agreed to move to another communication medium (one which wasn't officially work related.) Overt: It was on their own time, on a completely distinct commun…

She reported it to the founder, presented evidence, and made it clear that the conduct was unwelcome. I'm done at "milf".

Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?

#370

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, May 10, 2016, 10:30 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #319

logfromblammo wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the lawsuit brought by the person who gets fired, which requires the corporate lawyer to submit at least a brief and motion for dismissal, if not an actual answer to the claims. People occasionally do sue their former employers when they believe they have been wronged in some way. If you fire someone for sexual harassment when no such thing occurred, the ex-employee might sue for no other reason than to get a…

If you believe this, it seems like you might also believe that it's legally risky to fire a developer who rm's the production environment. After all, they might bring a frivolous lawsuit for no purpose other than to "get a declaratory judgement asserting the facts of the case". (Incidentally: I don't think you can just "sue for declaratory judgement" to enlist judges to settle arbitrary disputes; the judgement has to…

I can't tell whether I am explaining myself poorly or whether you are intentionally misinterpreting.

I am not a lawyer, and to my knowledge, neither are you. And that's why I won't go further than this post on this branch of the conversation. As I have noted before, you can apparently post far more often than I can, and I can't keep up with you even when I have any credible knowledge on the topic.

I have a somewhat jaded view of the US civil court system. Others, not quite so jaded, believe in the Hollywood stories where Joe Average can take on Blatantly Unethical, Inc. and win. Those are the people foolish enough to sue their former employers. Just don't do it. Take your licks and move on.

In your hypothetical, the ex-employee sues for injunctive relief against the former employer disclosing to anyone the reason why he was fired, as it is damaging to his professional reputation and therefore materially impacts earning potential. The employer has an affirmative defense that truth cannot be slander. So the judge now has legitimate reason to decide the facts of whether the employee was, in fact, fired for gross negligence. The employer submits log files with a motion brief, the judge pretends to read them, and then renders summary judgment in favor of the defendant. It is now public record forever that the employee was fired for rm'ing production. Any good lawyer could have informed the employee that this would not end well for him.

Edit:

Injunctive relief = the plaintiff seeks an order from the court for the defendant to either do or not do something. In this context, it would be to not tell anyone why they fired the plaintiff. This is my understanding of the concept. If you need additional explanation, talk to a lawyer, or a paralegal, or a law student, as I am none of these. This is just my layman's perception of a thing that courts can do. If the defendant disobeys the order, the plaintiff has to first find out about it and also actively petition the court to do something about it.