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Please investigate, not necessarily believe. Innocent til proven guilty still has some place in this world.. That being said, kudos to anyone courageous enou
by blazespin 9y ago
Please investigate, not necessarily believe. Innocent til proven guilty still has some place in this world..
That being said, kudos to anyone courageous enough to speak the truth even at the risk of vilification.
- joshuamorton 9y agoBelieve. Do not take action against individuals without investigation, but at organization levels, take measures as though the complaints are true.
- devoply 9y ago> Believe That's sounds like giving accusers too much power, especially if it leads to firing. It's not as if people don't lie.
- smt88 9y agoAccusers are unlikely to abuse this power in the workplace because it harms them, too. It's embarassing, stigmatizing, and often leads to conflicts with the friends of the aggressor.
- joshuamorton 9y ago>Do not take action against individuals without investigation He says on the same line.
- odonnellryan 9y ago"I believe you" is a common thing people say. That's what OP means I'm sure.
- ingenuous2 9y agoI think more appropriate would be to limit the scope of belief to the complainant. Treat them as a person; acknowledge they have experienced something traumatic. Do not believe every word anyone says as the absolute truth of an event. Evidence, corroboration, attempts to be objective -- these are all the rights of the accused. Believe the complainant but do not assume they are correct. Our memories are the movies based on real events.
- Cogito 9y agoNo that's ridiculous. Take measures based as though the complaints are made in good faith. If you assume them true then you would act as if the investigation has already taken place, and determined that they are true. If you're going to act like that why would you need an investigation? If complaints or concerns are raised in good faith then you have no need to mistrust the representation and instead can look to the facts and context of the situation. Believing someone is not important, understanding the sequence of events that led to them speaking up is.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- abritinthebay 9y agoYou literally just said "believe" because that's exactly what assuming the complaints are made in good faith is
- Cogito 9y agoI replied down thread to a similar point you made - I think you are redefining "believe" to the point where it loses value. Responding as if someone is acting in good faith means that - you believe that - they believe that - they are true On the other hand, if you believe someone it means that - you believe that - they are true Using "believe" to mean the first situation only makes everyone's meaning less clear.
- abritinthebay 9y agoAs I said in response: I don't really care what HN thinks about the term: the experts in the field recommended it. That should give you pause when you claim (incorrectly) that a such a narrow usage of language is correct.
- camelite 9y agoAs speakers of English, we ARE the experts in the field, and the vast majority of us don't agree with you.
- abritinthebay 9y agoInvestigating starts with belief. You don't have to assume truth, just believe they mean their account, you assume good faith. Believe them and allow that belief to start the process of uncovering what the truth is. There's a reason Listen & Believe is a thing and it's not because anyone is saying "you should have unquestioned faith in what someone says".
- Cogito 9y agoI'm not sure what you mean here by belief, but it seems like a redefinition that causes the word to lose value. "Believe" has always implied to me "understands to be true". How can I believe anything based only on the words of a single person? (Except trivial things like believing that they said something to you) I have primarily heard the phrase "listen and believe" used by people who think it is impossible for certain kinds of people to understand the experiences of other kinds of people. Following that argument, the claim is that if you assert an experience I am not capable of understanding then I must accept it, for I have no grounds to refute it. This has always seemed like unquestioned faith to me, for I think any argument should be able to stand on it's own merit. Maybe I am missing some nuance to the argument, or perhaps there is more going on, but in any case 'believe' seems to be the wrong word.
- abritinthebay 9y agoshrug I'm using the usage that social and case workers use when they talk about believing victims. So... frankly, I don't really care what HN thinks of the usage. Note, again, that nothing you said is counter to the "good faith" usage. You're assuming they are speaking the truth as they see it. That's all. That's how any investigation that involves eye witness testimony works. It's also the recommended practice for improving reporting and investigation so, again, don't really care what HN thinks about the term: the experts in the field recommended it.
- jpttsn 9y agoMaybe you meant to post this on Soical Worker News?
- kevinburke 9y agoInnocent until proven guilty is a great standard for criminal trials but probably not for the workplace, where people who report harassment are usually taking an incredible career risk by doing so.
- tehlike 9y agoon the flip side of this, at-will employment is a reason a company could take immediate action without having to investigate.
- paganel 9y agoPeople can also be very manipulative. Following down this path (i.e. "believing that the accuser is right even before the investigation starts") will only lead to less women being hired for relevant positions. Here's a relevant scenario: I'm a man, I hold a managerial position and I have to choose between hiring another man or a woman as a one of my direct-reports. Let's say both contenders have the same qualifications, they're both equally fit for the job, but then, I, as a manager, start thinking that if I hire the woman she will then possibly think of filing a sexual harassment complaint down the line in order to take my job. Remember the "believe" part, which means that the sexual complaint doesn't even need to be backed by anything real, because most of the times after the complaint has been made public the damage is already done for me, as a male manager, no matter what the investigation finds (if it manages to find anything). So I choose the man over the woman as my direct-report.
- Mandatum 9y agoTrust, but verify
- venture_lol 9y agoGeneral observations from experience: A well-run company will have proper procedures, processes in place to deal with work place issues. Management and all staff will also be required to take training on a continuous basis. Professionally managed organizations don't walk around "believing" this or that or spouting off "innocent until proven guilty" and such :)
- hueving 9y ago>Management and all staff will also be required to take training on a continuous basis. This is miserable. Unless the definition of sexual harassment changes every 6 months, you should not be forcing employees to retake these training sessions.
- nf05papsjfVbc 9y agoOften they are a means of having something to which they can point and say "we were doing our very best to create a safe environment". It's more of "ammo in case of lawsuit" than actual useful training. It may also be to just follow regulations in some places where they ought to have at least X hours/minutes of training on compliance related matters per year/month etc.
- creepydata 9y agoPeople (hopefully) won't get practice on reporting and handling harassment claims. It's good to have a refresher training to both remind employees of the process as well as a gesture to show they are still taking the issue seriously.
- r00fus 9y agoWe are required to take ethics training like this yearly. Simply doubling that frequency may be justified due to Uber's history.
- ruleabidinguser 9y agoIs that a passive (maybe it's not passive) aggressive smiley face? In a paragraph talking about what it means to be professional?