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One thing that every employee needs to understand is that HR is not your friend. No matter how friendly or helpful they seem, their job is not to protect you. It's to protect the company.
This. HR is there to protect the company and not to help employees. They have to justify their salary somehow. If they ask you to sign something it is usually not in your interest to do what they ask.
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Sure, but what's the alternative, especially in a case like this? Your manager is engaging in harassment, HR is where you "should" raise this. Her following protocol also makes her case stronger I would argue. You gave your company the chance to make things right. After that I'd say the gloves could come off if that's the route you want to go.
> what's the alternative Contact your state's labour commissioner. If you received stock or stock options, contact your state securities commissioner. Otherwise, suing is tried and true.
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Sure they're not your friend, but Jesus Christ, the amount of legal trouble this particular HR establishment exposed themselves to through their actions is breathtaking. THAT'S their job: to prevent the company from getting sued!! In this case I'm completely bewildered as to why HR handled this particular situation so clumsily.
Agreed. The "HR is not your friend" trope gets thrown out a lot, but in cases where your goals align with the company's (i.e. you don't want to get harassed, and the company doesn't want to get sued), HR is the place you should be able to go.
Yes, in theory. But most HRs "protect the org" in the most short sighted way possible
One thing that every employee needs to understand is that HR is not your friend. No matter how friendly or helpful they seem, their job is not to protect you. It's to protect the company.
I guess to some degree "protecting the company" involves implementing procedures that protect the company from losing a class action lawsuit and damaging their ability to recruit engineers, right?
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What's your point? That harassment occurs frequently and is often mishandled? I never disputed that.
Understood. You should get your lady friends in tech to read the comments you posted on a throwaway. Do you think they'll feel safer around you?
pointing out that we're an audience without legal standing, playing with pitchforks, is not harassment or condoning harassment.
One thing that every employee needs to understand is that HR is not your friend. No matter how friendly or helpful they seem, their job is not to protect you. It's to protect the company.
Good point. I gotta wonder about their general competence. What are the credentials to be an HR person? Here, even if they really wanted to discredit her and protect the company (so assuming they completely were not prepared to take her side, ever) they acted in a very stupid manner it seems. Is there an HR major? Or is it MBA student who never graduate? How does one end up picking a good HR person vs just a friend-o…
You basically have the option of abstaining entirely from any comment or remark that could resemble anything sexual to anyone within physical or digital earshot or be at risk to an uncertain and unwritten standard. Treat everyone as formless blobs of raceless genderless biological matter or else. This is a impossible when when jobs become the majority of people's lives and part of their identity. Sex is a crucial part of human identity and denying it's existence generally isn't healthy behavior or even practical.
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> what's the alternative Contact your state's labour commissioner. If you received stock or stock options, contact your state securities commissioner. Otherwise, suing is tried and true.
Suing is a surefire pathway to being made a pariah, case in point Ellen Pao. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pao_v._Kleiner_Perkins
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The allegations are trivially falsifiable. Did multiple women report the same person for harassment? Were multiple accusers told that it was his first offense? If the answer is yes then heads should roll. Why were reporters of harassment falsely told it was the accused harasser's first offense? Good question. There are several possible answers. Some more malicious than others. But they all end with several high level…
If the allegations are true, yes, heads should roll. Why are there no examples of this wealth of evidence that has been claimed to exist?
I mean let's face it: Susan doesn't stand to gain much from publicly accusing her former employer of harboring and shielding sexual harassers, but she has a lot to lose. Heck, she probably has hurt her employment prospects quite a bit, since many future employers will label her as a "troublemaker" and refuse to hire her.
My guess: Susan has hard evidence that she can use if Uber comes after her with a defamation lawsuit. Otherwise Uber management wouldn't bother with this investigation (not to mention publicly announce that there is an investigation).