In February, Susan Fowler, a former Uber engineer, published a damning blog post alleging she endured sexual harassment at the company.
She described her "strange experience" at the ride-hailing startup, which allegedly involved HR ignoring her complaints that her manager was sexually harassing her.
That was just the start of Uber's woes.
As Business Insider's Biz Carson reported, the startup was hit with further accusations of harassment, as a New York Times report alleged groping and drug use among employees at a company retreat. The stream of bad news may have prompted a recent exodus of execs and managers, including SVP Amit Singhal, who had not disclosed sexual harassment complaints against him from his previous job at Google.
As a result of the allegations, Uber launched an internal work misconduct investigation and has enlisted outside law firm Perkins Coie to investigate as well. In addition, US Attorney General Eric Holder is leading a separate investigation specifically focusing on investigating sexual harassment, reporting back to the company's board.
So far, 215 claims of various inappropriate workplace incidents including sexual harassment have been investigated, as Business Insider previously reported. On Tuesday, Uber fired 20 employees as a result of the investigation and recommended training for 31 more workers.
2/ And here’s a further breakdown of the 215 claims: http://pic.twitter.com/yLhFGvgmlJ
— Uber Comms (@Uber_Comms) June 6, 2017
But is it enough to fix a culture that led to repeated allegations of harassment?
"I like the idea that people and organizations can be rehabilitated," says Raleigh, North Carolina-based human resources consultant Laurie Ruettimann. "I'm not sure I've seen that in practice in recent history, but I have to believe it's true."
Business Insider spoke with three HR experts to find out the implications of the allegations and resulting investigations for Uber and how the world's most valuable startup might correct its course going forward.
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'The culture permitted it'
The HR experts agreed that such a crisis is indicative of a toxic, secretive company culture, in which harassment and other bad behavior can flourish.
"Obviously the culture permitted it and allowed it to happen," says executive coach and Learning Engine president Dr. N. Elizabeth Fried. "One would hope that the culture comes out of an evolved level of thinking, but ... if they were truly a culture that was committed to fairness and equality and that type of situation, they wouldn't be in the position that they're in."
In other words, in order to permanently fix the problem going forward, the entire culture must change.
'This is a first step'
John Hudson, a Chicago-based HR business partner with Slalom, LLC., says that Uber firing employees as a result of the investigation is "a smart PR move."
"If there is an alleged culture of harassment there, this is a first step," he says. "They then need to continue to build on cleaning up the environment and change their hiring practices."
"If they are truly serious about changing the culture, then cleaning house is necessary," Hudson says. "Have they identified where the issues are? A lot of these culture problems start at the top of an organization. Were they bold enough to make some moves of some bad apples regardless of their performance? Or did they look the other way at some of the talent?"
'Enforce a zero tolerance policy for these behaviors'
As Business Insider's Biz Carson reported, the harassment allegations have proven "a problem Uber has been slow to recognize."
Recommendations from the investigation's official report are expected to be announced next week, after Uber's staff meeting. The experts had some suggestions on what policies may actually help combat harassment.
"If there was not a formal investigative process or way for employee complaints to be investigated, a good first step would be to implement one," Hudson says. To do this, he suggests a few things:
• Establish an anonymous hotline
• Have an independent internal team or an independent third party be responsible for the thorough investigation of each claim
• Institute and enforce a zero tolerance policy for harassment
An Uber spokesperson has said that the company does have a confidential help line, which it will continue to run, as well as a new system in place to better log and track complaints.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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