Sexual Harassment At The Hands Of Top Management In Uber And TVF Qtiyapa
For anyone who reads the newspaper or browses through the internet, it does not come as a shock anymore, the number of sexual harassment or violation cases that have come to the fore.
Case in point, the allegation put forth by a former female employee of Uber, which as a company already boasts of a sexist and misogynistic work culture. It was a blog post which went viral in which a former Uber engineer, Susan Fowler alleged and claimed of being sexually harassed in her workplace by a well-established manager, disrespected by the HR of the company and even blocked from being transferred to a different branch; basically putting a stopper in any advancement she could have made in her career at Uber. Subsequent reports have indicated that, many have pointed a finger at CEO Travis Kalanick’s alleged view of the function of human resources. It was seen that he regarded the sole function of HR to be recruitment and hiring, and gave very little attention to the development of employees at Uber, their career coaching and also manager training. Susan Fowler writes-“It was clear that he was trying to get me to have sex with him, and it was so clearly out of line that I immediately took screenshots of these chat messages and reported him to HR.
Uber was a pretty good-sized company at that time, and I had pretty standard expectations of how they would handle situations like this. I expected that I would report him to HR, they would handle the situation appropriately, and then life would go on - unfortunately, things played out quite a bit differently. When I reported the situation, I was told by both HR and upper management that even though this was clearly sexual harassment and he was propositioning me, it was this man's first offense, and that they wouldn't feel comfortable giving him anything other than a warning and a stern talking-to. Upper management told me that he "was a high performer" (i.e. had stellar performance reviews from his superiors) and they wouldn't feel comfortable punishing him for what was probably just an innocent mistake on his part.
I was then told that I had to make a choice: (i) I could either go and find another team and then never have to interact with this man again, or (ii) I could stay on the team, but I would have to understand that he would most likely give me a poor performance review when review time came around, and there was nothing they could do about that. I remarked that this didn't seem like much of a choice, and that I wanted to stay on the team because I had significant expertise in the exact project that the team was struggling to complete (it was genuinely in the company's best interest to have me on that team), but they told me the same thing again and again. One HR rep even explicitly told me that it wouldn't be retaliation if I received a negative review later because I had been "given an option". I tried to escalate the situation but got nowhere with either HR or with my own management chain (who continued to insist that they had given him a stern-talking to and didn't want to ruin his career over his "first offense"). ”The HR department at Uber was very much blinder, or maybe even pressurized by top management and didn’t choose to respond to and of the allegations made by these women. Eventually, Fowler stated, that they gave up on the HR as well as the upper management in general. Eventually he "left" the company. Nobody knows what he finally did, that actually convinced them to fire him.
To its credit, Uber is taking action now, including hiring former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder to investigate allegations of sexual discrimination and having Kalanick meet with more than 100 female engineers. “I am a heterosexual, single man and when I find a woman sexy, I tell her she’s sexy – but this is only done in my personal capacity. I compliment women in my personal space and not at the workplace. Is that wrong? Is every man, whose compliment a woman doesn’t like, a molester. Having said that, I am very particular about my behavior – I will approach a woman, but never force myself,” TVF co-founder, Arunabh Kumar.
This statement was issued by Kuumar Exactly a day later, after quite a few women openly admitted, rather accused him of sexual violations and misconduct If it was Uber’s sexist culture that made global news TVF, it was this strong case that made the similar kind of headlines in the Indian startup structure.
Both the cases are similar, not only in terms of how the events transpired, but also in the way they were showcased to the world. Whereas in case of Uber, it was the software engineer Susan Fowler, who in a Medium Blogpost revealed how she had been propositioned by her supervisor, in the TVF case, it was actually an anonymous Medium user called the Indian Fowler who, in a blog titled “The Indian Uber”, accused Arunabh Kumar of sexual harassment and also of molestation. It was doubtful whether such a case was based on solid evidence or not as such a difficulty especially arises in cases of sexual harassment, because it usually comes down to a “he said, she said” narrative, making it difficult for women to justify their claims, even in the absence of corroborative evidence. However, it so happened that once she brought this issue into the limelight,9 other women made accusations of similar kind against Kumar. One cannot help but think that few of these women would have been waiting for a long time to open up about their experiences at the workplace. It can easily be understood that these women felt much safer, now to share their woes, knowing that someone else is also facing such similar issues.
It was 2014, the anonymous user stated, that the abuse started, with Arunabh engaging in lascivious and inappropriate conversation with the writer over a red light area in Muzzaffarpur, UP.A controversial thing that happened during this time was that TVF was extremely defensive and brash in putting forth their stand, which surely did not work in their favour.
TVF co-founder Nidhi Bisht in support of Kumar said in a Facebook post “Investigation is underway about the original blogpost and TVF has gone on record and said that no such girl has ever been associated with TVF. The official statement cannot possibly be a threat to the ‘victim’ because no such person exists. But if they do, TVF urges them to come out or have a representative take legal action and we promise to abide by every rule in the book to make sure justice is served. TVF has zero tolerance towards workplace harassment and an investigation will be conducted and appropriate actions will be taken. We have a Prevention of Sexual Harassment committee, backed by Legal and HR which deals with such issues.”
The end result of this messy debacle was the fact that Arunabh Kumar was arrested on April 22nd .That being said, he was released on bail within a few hours. Nevertheless , the investors and commercial brands who were earlier interested to invest in TVF will most certainly have those interests anymore. It is quite hypocritical to see that a brand like TVF, who invested their resources into a full -fledged channel for female-centric and feminist content, Girliyapa, has to clear the air around an issue that very much targets its moral fibre. One of the principal similarities that are seen in the 2 cases is that, when the women employees approached their supervisors or even the HR Team, their complaints were totally ignored and suppressed under the apparent claims that these were rumors or that it was the accused’s “first offence”. Needless to say, there are a few ways in which organizations in general can handle such situations better, by making changes in their HR policies and also being more cognizant about the happenings of the workplace.
Organizations should not simply consider the HR departments to be hiring and firing centers; moreover they should give equal importance to enriching the experiences of employees, making them more employable, training them, and also developing their personalities.
Value diversity in the workplace
Organizations should not engage in affirmative actions simply because they are mandatory, but actually make a conscious effort to imbibe it in their moral fibre. One cannot deny the unconscious biases that seep into the realm of diversity. Even so, small changes in terms of celebration of their festivals, catering to their dietary needs can surely make a big difference in the long run, making employees feel included.
Investing more in manager training
Managers, be it freshly recruited or having previous experience, should all undergo training. This can play a key role in helping them imbibe the objectives and principles of the organization well. This will hopefully reduce the corpus of untoward incidents.
Create a more open work environment as opposed to a beaurocratic one
Employees should be free, in the sense, that they can talk about their conflicts and issues, and also reducing the likelihood of a scandal. None of the concerns should be slid under the carpet.
Zero tolerance for bad behavior
This is a policy that a make or break a company. No individual should have the entitlement to behave in a disrespectful position, only on the basis of their gender, seniority, or religion.
We are living in times when it is desperately improve working conditions of all employees. Needless to say consistent efforts by organizations and their respective HR Departments is the only way in which that can happen.
