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> someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business What I still don't understand is why the u

> someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business What I still don't understand is why the uber HR acted this way. I think people understand that HR is there for the company, but the assumption is that they want to avoid any bad press. If they protect a person who is a multiple offender. And this person is not C*E or high ranking manager, just a regular "high performer" (what does it even suppose to mean). What's the outcome going to be. Isn't it obvious that at some point this will generate a bad press for the company. And the bad press will be more costly than replacing the offender. Also, when they fire an offender they are likely to "send a message" and avoid some offenses in the future. I totally don't get how on earth protecting a "high performer" and sexual offender is good for the business. -- Unrelated but I wonder what happened to the HR folks that handled these cases. What would have been their line of defense — "I was only following orders", "I didn't want any trouble in the team"? Do they have good careers now because the next employers consider them loyal? Do they have hard time because they did poor job protecting uber?

arvinsim 7y ago
It's never as simple as a moral equation. You must take account office politics and the connections people have inside the company. For all we know, that guy might be a friend of a CEO, a relative of HR, etc.
SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
Point well made that quite often, "the right thing" and "protect the company" are the same, because "protect the abuser" is not good for the company, good publicity etc. However, people often act for short term gain at the cost of long-term pain. I think that it's fair to say that Uber did when they repeatedly tried to "make the problem go away".
magduf 7y ago
>I totally don't get how on earth protecting a "high performer" and sexual offender is good for the business. It probably isn't, in the long run, but it IS good for the HR chief's career to keep the executives happy, and the "high performing" sexual predator is probably a good buddy of the executives. And as for the good of the business, why should the executives care about that (in the long run)? As long as it performs well for the next few years, that's good enough, because the executives will move on by then.

arvinsim 7y ago

It's never as simple as a moral equation. You must take account office politics and the connections people have inside the company. For all we know, that guy might be a friend of a CEO, a relative of HR, etc.

SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago

Point well made that quite often, "the right thing" and "protect the company" are the same, because "protect the abuser" is not good for the company, good publicity etc. However, people often act for short term gain at the cost of long-term pain. I think that it's fair to say that Uber did when they repeatedly tried to "make the problem go away".

magduf 7y ago

>I totally don't get how on earth protecting a "high performer" and sexual offender is good for the business. It probably isn't, in the long run, but it IS good for the HR chief's career to keep the executives happy, and the "high performing" sexual predator is probably a good buddy of the executives. And as for the good of the business, why should the executives care about that (in the long run)? As long as it performs well for the next few years, that's good enough, because the executives will move on by then.