One of the key takeaways from my book, How To Engineer Your Layoff, is understanding that the Human Resources department is not on your side. First and foremost, the HR department is there to protect the company from liability. After such protection is made, maybe then HR will help a troubled employee with a problem.
My experience comes from being a manager at a major financial organization, having to work with HR to hire and lay off staff, negotiating my own severance, and consulting with dozens of people about negotiating their own severance since publishing my book in 2012. Your best strategy is to befriend HR but hold sensitive information close to heart right before making a move.
Because Uber is the most successful startup of all time at its current stage, it’s always going to be a target. The latest damning news about the company comes from Susan Flowers, a former engineer at Uber who penned a post called, Reflecting On One Very Strange Year At Uber. You should read the post if you are an employee, manager, woman, startup entrepreneur, or work in HR. You should also read the post if you’re a bored retiree crazy enough to think that going back to work will make you happier!
Susan writes that she was sexually harassed at Uber and denied upward mobility due to being a woman. This is not a surprise for those of us who have experience working in Silicon Valley, an area dominated by socially awkward men who’ve suddenly become hot stuff due to their computer engineering skills. Here’s an excerpt from her post:
“On my first official day rotating on the team, my new manager sent me a string of messages over company chat. He was in an open relationship, he said, and his girlfriend was having an easy time finding new partners but he wasn’t. He was trying to stay out of trouble at work, he said, but he couldn’t help getting in trouble, because he was looking for women to have sex with. 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.”
Clearly, this type of behavior from a manager is NOT OK. The manager should be fired for trying to take advantage of a subordinate. No employee should ever have to feel uncomfortable going to work.
However, if your goal is to survive an organization’s politics and land mines, immediately reporting your manager to HR for any grievances could be a suboptimal career move. Instead, it’s important to consider CONFRONTING your oppressor first, spelling out exactly what it is s/he is doing that makes you feel uncomfortable. Have a conversation.
Yes, confrontation is sometimes scary, but it is a must to help save your skin. Most oppressors don’t get confronted because the majority of people they maltreat are terrified to stand up to them. It’s so much easier to report someone than work out difficult and unsuitable situations yourself. Heck, trying to solve difficult situations is why most people quit instead of engineer their layoff.
But what you’ll find is that once you stand up to your oppressor, he should get the message and back off. The bully now knows you won’t stand for his bullshit, and if the bully continues, he knows he’s putting his career and reputation at risk.
One confrontation hack I used when it was time for me to face someone at work was envisioning what type of power this person or senior employee had over me OUTSIDE of work. The answer was always nothing. He was just another regular chump I could whip on the tennis court or in a dark alley. Get your mind fierce.
Here are more excerpts from her post highlighting how Susan continuously reported everything she felt was wrong to HR:
“Things were beginning to get even more comically absurd with each passing day. Every time something ridiculous happened, every time a sexist email was sent, I’d sent a short report to HR just to keep a record going.
Less than a week after this absurd meeting, my manager scheduled a 1:1 with me, and told me we needed to have a difficult conversation. He told me I was on very thin ice for reporting his manager to HR.
California is an at-will employment state, he said, which means we can fire you if you ever do this again. I told him that was illegal, and he replied that he had been a manager for a long time, he knew what was illegal, and threatening to fire me for reporting things to HR was not illegal. I reported his threat immediately after the meeting to both HR and to the CTO: they both admitted that this was illegal, but none of them did anything.”
With each HR reporting, Susan trapped herself in an increasingly difficult position because HR was building a case for the company, and not for her. The only thing Susan could do was leave Uber after one year, which is EXACTLY what HR wanted. Any HR department would prefer a disgruntled employee leaving quietly on his/her own versus having to deal with the complexities and negative ramifications of settling a legal case.
Unfortunately for Uber, Susan took to the internet to air her grievances and caused a massive backlash by reviving the #DeleteUber hashtag on social media. If HR and management had properly addressed the issues earlier, Susan would never have publicly blown up the company.
If Uber is valued at ~$66 billion based on the last round of funding, this negative PR could EASILY wipe away at least $1 billion in market value as consumers switch over to Lyft or other means of ridesharing transportation. Perhaps the damage is actually much greater given a reputation takes a tremendous amount of time to rebuild.
Hiring former attorney general, Eric Holder to lead an investigation into claims of sexual harassment and discrimination is totally a PR move, and the wrong one. First, if they want to hire anybody to investigate, it should be a woman. Second, how much investigating do you really need when you can easily find out who Susan Fowler’s HR manager was who repeatedly ignored her reports? Finally, having an independent audit of HR while including the head of HR is not going to win anybody over.
See: Massive Reputation Destruction Is Why Negotiating A Severance Is Possible
Understand The Role Of Human Resources
Most employees think of HR as a department that handles the onboarding of new employees, ensures everybody plays nice with each other and helps struggling employees do better. Instead, think of HR like undercover corporate security.
Employers need workers to grow a business. But employers also realize that with each worker they hire, there’s a risk the employee might cause problems within the organization. HR is there to try and smooth things out before things reach extreme levels, e.g. settlements over lawsuits.
It is true states such as California have “at-will” employment laws, which mean a company can choose to lay off an employee whenever they want. But seldom are companies so ruthless as to lay employees off without proper documentation. Documentation is why it often takes at least one review and six months before a company will lay off any employee because if the employee ever sues for wrongful termination, the company can show they highlighted the performance issues and gave the employee a chance to improve.
The reason why Susan’s first manager wasn’t fired immediately after being reported was because he was deemed a “high performer.” Uber HR determined the manager was more valuable to the company than his transgressions. Clearly, this shows that HR is on the corporation’s side, and not on Susan’s side.
With each HR reporting, HR builds a case that Susan is a weak, easily offended employee, who isn’t willing to talk things out and play nice with others. HR can basically manipulate their interpretation of Susan’s reporting as they see fit to protect the company and its highest performers.
“The HR rep began the meeting by asking me if I had noticed that *I* was the common theme in all of the reports I had been making, and that if I had ever considered that I might be the problem.”
Do not think for one second that everything you reveal to HR will be kept confidential and won’t be reported to your manager or someone in a position to determine your future.
I won’t discuss details about my experience with HR when subordinates were unhappy. All I can say is that I knew what unhappy subordinates were saying to HR because HR told me. And I’m sure there are things I don’t know from HR that were told to my managers because they deemed me a liability if I knew too much.
Your Goal As An Employee
Do these simple things if you want to survive workplace politics and get ahead.
1) Read your employee handbook. I’m constantly surprised that most people have never read their employee handbook. It is loaded with great information to your benefit. If the information is in your employee handbook, that means it is gospel. HR/management cannot go back and argue against whatever thing you did if it is OK per the handbook.
2) Keep meticulous records of perceived transgressions. Document everything you think is wrong. This includes inappropriate e-mails, texts, conversations, events. But keep everything private until you really need to talk. Your highly organized documentation will serve as your ammunition during any bargaining process.
3) Build a relationship with your office HR manager. If you can get your HR manager to be on your side, you’ve got a powerful ally because she will help you navigate the land mines. It’s human nature to help people you like. HR people are no different. Take her out for coffee. Ask about her vacation. If she has a family, inquire about their health. Hopefully, you really do build a great relationship. If not, at least make it clear you are a hard working, thoughtful, and caring employee. HR does have the power to speak on your behalf and make recommendations about your future with the company.
4) Confront your oppressor and talk things out. People who oppress in the workplace are sometimes CLUELESS about their actions. Because nobody tells them they are being weird, sexist, rude, or whatever, they continue to act inappropriately because they believe whatever they are doing must be OK. One strategy is to just take them out for lunch or coffee on you. You can disarm them with your generosity, making it much easier to share what’s on your mind. Bottling things up and exploding is not healthy. And reporting your manager to HR when everything you say could get back to your manager can be a risky, career limiting move. Stand up for yourself and talk things through.
5) Know your leverage. If you’ve come to wits’ end, then leaving is probably your best option. Leaving quietly is one way to go about things. Leaving through a lawsuit is another way. But the best way is to engineer your layoff so that both parties get something, i.e. go through mediation. The reason why I was able to earn a severance and keep five years worth of deferred compensation is by knowing my leverage and having a dialogue. After 11 years at my firm, I knew that if I left, the revenue I helped generate for the firm would decline by multiples more than the cost of my employment. Therefore, I came up with a plan to transition my clients to my subordinate over a two month period to help them minimize any losses. I also made it clear to my employer that I wasn’t going to a competitor, which made negotiations much easier.
Things Can Usually Be Worked Out
Please think twice before firing off every transgression, perceived or otherwise, to HR. That could set you up for failure. Instead, confront your terrible co-worker and clearly delineate that which is bothering you. If that doesn’t work, speak to a manager you think you can trust to help you. Speaking to HR is sadly the last resort.
As good fortune would have it, Susan landed on her feet at Stripe, another richly valued startup. It was wise of Susan to light Uber’s barn on fire after she solidified her position. Who dares bother her now?
Recommendation If You Want To Quit Your Job
If you want to leave a job you no longer enjoy, I recommend you negotiate a severance instead of quit. If you negotiate a severance like I did back in 2012, you not only get a severance check, but potentially subsidized healthcare, deferred compensation, and worker training.
When you get laid off, you’re also eligible for up to roughly 27 weeks of unemployment benefits. Having a financial runway is huge during your transition period.
Conversely, if you quit your job you get nothing. Check out the book How To Engineer Your Layoff: Make A Small Fortune By Saying Goodbye.
It’s the only book that teaches you how to negotiate a severance. In addition, it was recently updated and expanded thanks to tremendous reader feedback and successful case studies.
Important note: Of course not all HR professionals are considered “corporate undercover security” that only fights for senior management, and not the everyday employee. There are some great HR people out there who will fight for you and draw a line in the sand when it comes to ethical grey areas. Just realize that HR professionals are employed by your company, and therefore have their own livelihoods and careers to consider. Be careful whom you disclose information to.
Update 2H2019: Travis Kalanick is no longer the CEO, and there is a huge uprising against male Venture Capitalists who’ve used their powers to sexually harass and assault women founders looking for funding. I feel there is going to be immense change for the good, and I’m proud of women like Susan Fowler for speaking out.
OMG! Just reading this nonsense reminds me of why I invest! Corporate America is the worst. I recently left a director position at a large State agency because we spent our days managing this BS. If I assigned 4 offices to 4 employees I’d have to explain why one of the employees that “looked” different didn’t get a window! Usually the answer was simple….the 3 that did were sr management and the 1 that didn’t was an adm min!
Don’t miss it at all!
I am an HR Professional who has worked hard to establish myself in my career with two degrees in this field. I find this article incredibly misleading and frankly offensive. While I agree, sadly there are bad HR professionals that act only on behalf of the company but to state “Most employees think of HR as a department that handles the onboarding of new employees, ensures everybody plays nice with each other and helps struggling employees do better. Instead, think of HR like undercover corporate security,” is just not anywhere near accurate.
The role of HR is to balance the needs of the business with the employees and majority of HR professionals understand and passionately believe that the engagement level of employees is directly related to the health of the business and impacts the bottom line. Therefore, helping mediate conflict is critical and often means managing out bad behaving managers. Managers such as the ones profiled in Uber not only impact the employees they abuse but also the health of the team, the peers who see the treatment and see nothing happening and that creates a level of disengagement which impacts productivity greatly. If you cannot feel safe, comfortable and trust your peers and manager you are definitely not operating at your full capacity.
I personally have and I know many colleagues in HR have fought with attorneys or higher level leadership to protect employees as well as managers because THAT is our role. This has resulted in senior leaders, sales executives and mid level leaders being terminated as well as employees who have violated policies. I do recognize this is in part because the 4 major companies I’ve worked for have take ethics seriously – but there have been times I have to fight for the decision. Sadly, there will always be companies like Uber that have not only terrible leadership but also terrible HR professionals but to blanket statement the entire profession is simply FALSE and offensive.
Please get to know some more HR professionals before you write something like this again.
I thought maybe I’d enjoy this blog but I will not be back because your ignorance and offensive writing about my profession.
Thanks for the feedback, and you are right. It’s not fair to make a blanket statement such as this towards all HR professionals. I’ve added an addendum to the post at the bottom.
Important note: Of course not all HR professionals are considered “corporate undercover security” that only fights for senior management, and not the everyday employee. There are some great HR people out there who will fight for you and draw a line in the sand when it comes to ethical grey areas. Just realize that HR professionals are employed by the company, and therefore have their own livelihoods and careers to consider. Be careful whom you disclose information to.
The media’s #1 are huge companies that will give it continuous stories. Susan’s story is front page for one day then forgotten for 364 days of the yr. A media that is very nice and very favorable to Uber will get hundreds of stories, interviews with Uber executives, talks about it. It’s a no brainer who to support here?
I haven’t bing.com her story, nor will I. My guess is if the media give her too much attention, Uber will have many ways to retaliate against the media. Nordstorms and Macys comes to mind immediately.
Does one think the silicon valley really actually cares about diversity, race and sex with there well published public diversity company manuals? Or is the real reason they are greedy af and want to hire from countries like India en mass where a computer science PHD living in India earns $70,000 usd (or maybe they’d rather hire a fresh Bsc 22 yr old computer science undergraduate for $80,000 usd)?
It really depends how valuable her sexually harassing manager was. Open relationship? Really? Why are you even talking about having sex at work? He was more valuable to the company than her so the HR covers for him. Susan codes. He likely codes, manages, drafts company proposals. It will take her a few yrs before she can manage, and another few yrs prior to her drafting any company proposals. Susan may think shes a wonderful engineer but having been exposed to Fortune 500 C-suites and their posses she’s got plenty to learn. Aspiring C-suites can show the actual amount of $ they are saving, bring in, $ from efficiency change they implemented. They got and create the proposals for future projects, with data, with how each project will affect the bottom line of Uber. Sometimes great coders think I make a great GUI, I wrote the mobile version, I rewrote it for Android, I fixed 10 bugs quickly. Sorry but any new computer science undergraduate could do what you do. But until you can demonstrate how you affect the company’s bottom line year in year out, you’re not as valuable as you make oneself out to be.
Internal investigations of this sort seem like a waste of resources. I worked at a big, international law firm where a handful of female attorneys brought a sexual harassment/gender discrimination complaint to HR. After some time, an internal investigation began. Multiple attorneys who were interviewed by the investigator told me that they lied to the investigator by telling them these problems didn’t exist in the office, because they felt their job would be at risk if they told the truth. They said they would tell the truth only in a deposition under oath.
I really enjoyed this post, and your other recent post about sexism in the work place. My mom has been working in corporate consulting for nearly 40 years, and she acknowledges that equality has improved vastly, but there is still a certain “boys club” attitude and companies still can turn a blind eye to sexist behavior.
I was the business manager of a small business for the past few years, and the only female on the executive board. One of the part-owners treated me horribly, along with several several other women (i.e. saying things like “it’s a woman’s job to clean up my mess”, calling women at competitors’ companies “bi**hes, giving pay rises and a stake in the company to male employees but me and not other senior female employees, wrongfully firing two female employees without cause because they had “strong personalities”) and after I brought it up several times to the main owner, it was clear that things were not going to change so I left. I sometimes regret that I had to leave, as opposed to resolving things, but I was confident that I could start my own business and choose who I work with in the future so that I can surround myself with people who don’t behave this way. I really appreciate that you keep discussing this topic, as I think it’s important to give women (and men) the tools to deal with these situations! Thank you!
Wow. I knew about #DeleteUber but I didn’t know about this sexual harassment case.
Yikes. What a terrible company to work for. And yes, I agree with you that HR is not there to help you, it’s there to help the company. It’s the same with company appointed doctors who assess whether you are healthy enough to go back to work. One of my co-workers almost died from a collapsed lung and the doctor said he could go back to work within a week! WTF?!
You are absolutely right. I did feel a lot better about being retired and FI after reading her story. I’m glad she had the courage to speak out so that her story can help others going forward.
Time to switch to Lyft?
Yess! As a former manager in a Fortune 500 company, I also saw that HR works for the same people you do. They bend to keep the senior leaders happy. I have to disagree with you though, that confronting someone bothering you works in situations of sexual harassment. If you think a creep has never been told he is a creep, you’re kidding. Plus – when you reject some guys outright, they take it out on you 10x worse. This realization started in 7th grade when I was kicked in the shins by a guy at a middle school dance. I think you might want to revise that advice, because for every guy that says “oh, thanks for the feedback. Didn’t realize I was making you uncomfortable,” there are others that will say “fu, biyatch” and might get violent.
“Because Uber is the most successful startup of all time at its current stage”
This is why the economy is in shambles. What kind of “successful company” is unprofitable?
Huffpo says “Bloomberg recently reported that Uber lost $470 million on $415 million in revenue in an unspecified time frame, according to information that is being used to attract investors. Similarly, information leaked to Gawker reported a $56 million loss on $104 million in revenue in 2013 and $160 million losses on $101 million in revenue during the first half of 2014.”
But yet this company is “successful”… It is definitely highly valued.
Why? Speculation. Betting on a pyramid scheme with the idea that if you can get your money out before the house of cards collapses you can come out a winner. Forget everyone who will lose. Forget that uber drives down wages and conditions and eliminates the limited autonomy cab drivers have fought for and won. As long as you get yours to pile on top of the huge sums you already have (but don’t need) that’s all that matters.
There was a time that stocks were tied to actual production. Joe bought a stock in Heinz. Heinz used the money to expand its ketchup factory. It hired more workers, produced more ketchup and made a higher profit. It paid Joe back for his investment and a little more in the form of interest taken from the higher profits.
Now it’s all speculation. Speculators buy stocks as a sort of gamble that the stock will become hot so they can jump back out with more than they started with. Never mind that the company they are investing in is losing money. Doesn’t matter. And in order to keep the stock hot, to keep up their lavish lifestyles and keep paying off dividends the CEOs are destroying production: liquidating their factories, firing workers, cutting salaries and benefits.
Eventually the company goes out of business, the ceo finds work elsewhere and the parasites look for the next host body to bleed dry.
This is not sustainable. The crash of 2008 created by this setup was put off by mass government intervention. That is even less sustainable. The depression to come will shake the world to its core. Get ready.
I’ve thought about this often. What does it do to the economy when we allow these companies to essentially survive off capital raises? Lose 200 million? No big deal, issue some more stock. Continue to offer your product or service at below what it actually costs to deliver and drive the old competition that needs to survive on profit into the ground. And in the long run? Well hopefully when your product/service has to compete in the real market (assuming you’ll need to earn a profit someday) people don’t realize “holy crap! I’m not going to pay what it actually costs this company to turn a profit! I’m going back to…oh no wait, they went out of business”
Great article! As an experienced HR professional, I have never witnessed nor participated in such a botched sexual harassment situation, ever!
Look, I understand the reputation that HR has as the police, corporate lap dog, etc. and much of it is deserved. I can only tell you what my experience has been and that I’ve tried to represent both the company and the employee, knowing that it’s difficult and a fine line. I have been involved in many investigations that were a lot less severe then the Uber example and ended up firing the offender. Knowing the reputation that HR has with employees, I’ve tried to be approachable and friendly so people would be comfortable to talk to me, hopefully way before a situation is out of control. I’ve also tried to honest and direct in a professional and respectful manner.
Again, I get why an employee might not want to go to HR…if I wasn’t in HR, i would probably feel the same way. :-) Sadly, as many have already mentioned and what I call the ‘other’ golden rule: he who has the gold, makes the rules…I too have witnessed too many people decisions made based on the bottom line, incompetence or lack of courage versus doing the right thing.
Finally, the 5 employee goals are great. #4 is a tough one. My experience has been that most experiencing some kind of harassment are too afraid to confront the offended because they are usually their boss or someone in authority. It would be ideal and depending on the relationship, could happen, it’s just tough because the employee is worried about their job. It’s just so surprising that after all these years since Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas that this still happens…
Thanks for chiming in as an experienced HR professional!
So I’ve got to ask, what would you recommend did Susan do? And what would you have done if you were her HR manager?
Thx!
After reading Susan’s entire “Reflecting on a Strange Year at Uber” I think she has a very strong sexual harassment case and she should sue their butts off! (NoCal being employee friendly and all)
She absolutely did the right thing in going to HR. Their HR department were absolute idiots and I counted at least five serious things they did wrong. HR came across as clueless but so did senior management. I’m surprised Susan didn’t leave sooner.
Regarding what I would have done, I would have done an investigation into the facts and if they showed that the manager had engaged in inappropriate conduct, I would have recommended termination, especially since it appears that this wasn’t his first offense.
If management didn’t support the termination, I would strenuously disagree and explain why. I would then start looking for another job because based on Susan’s short blog, there were enough data points that Uber’s org culture is lacking.
HR’s position is absolutely to protect the company. In some (but not all, I hasten to add) cases I’ve experienced, and especially where the culture is poor, HR are too stupid to realise that the way they’re protecting the company is actually damaging the company. This is a good example; it tells me that Uber’s culture is one where bullying is acceptable. Had someone in HR been intelligent enough to realise the greater damage that could be caused, perhaps this would have been handled differently. Presumably this attitufe comes from the top. I’ve never used Uber, but quite honestly this would make me thing thrice!
Very good point about human resources not seeing the forest for the trees.
But you better believe they now do, and so do probably hundreds of similar type of companies all around America and perhaps the world.
I’m sure HR is afraid of their bosses as well for not towing the party line.
Excellent post. It’s good to remember that HR is not your friend, but also that HR (and companies) like to take the path of least resistance (and are sometimes short-sighted in eyeing it). I agree that Susan Flowers might have had a different outcome if she had handled things differently, but it’s really hard for me to armchair QB the absolutely horrible situation she found herself in.
One bit of advice (combined with a dire warning) – in addition to the meticulous record-keeping you suggest, it would also be worthwhile to consider recording verbal conversations (since those are where the most insane harassment might occur). Roger Aisles might have survived if Gretchen Carlson hadn’t secretly recorded him, but once those tapes came out he was done.
HOWEVER, you are entering a dangerous legal arena if you secretly record someone. Susan Flowers didn’t have that option since CA is a “two party consent” state (everyone being recorded needs to consent). But there are a lot of “one party consent” states where only one party needs to consent. It’s a potential addition to your meticulous records, but just be wary you might be breaking the law.