The Truffle Shuffle
In a Retail Dive article published September 3, 2019, titled “Behind closed doors: The friction between the Nike brand it’s corporate culture” It explains that “women have been identified as one of “four epic growth opportunities” at the same time it has faced public scrutiny over how it treats women… shadows have persistently broken through the retailer’s sunny picture, in the form of gender inequality assertions.” Two women filed a class action lawsuit…alleging sex discrimination. In court documents, they detailed problematic incidents between male and female co-workers, and called out an alleged boys club culture that led, they said, to the promotion of male employees despite numerous complaints to Nike’s human resources department.” A document reads “women on my team were placed on corrective action plans due to supposed “behavioral issues…in the midst of these complaints, the company depicts Nike as a brand that supports women…”
However, and to support the article above; advertising and posting about donations made to women focused organizations, or posting comments from upper leadership regarding how proud they are that they work for a company that supports women, does not mean a women-supportive culture exists. This smoke and mirror culture was never more prevalent than during my last 18 months at the Fortune 500 company I was at for 21 years.
In the Forbes article dated September 10, 2014 titled “Do You Have a Real Culture of Quality, or Smoke and Mirrors?” it states that “we find cases where a company will be using the tools and the methodologies of quality, but there’s no true culture of quality…these companies put some procedures in place and then, once a year, just before their audit, they clean up their factory. And since there is no sustained commitment to quality, there is no culture of quality, so they do not attain anything close to the full value of the standard.” So why might this be? The article goes on to state “CEOs and C-suite (titles) tend to receive filtered, big-picture material that has been “prettied up” for management. So when quality improvement projects and results are presented, the “dirty secrets” of the process are often excluded from the short, summary presentations.”
With a simple google search you will find countless articles of women, and in some cases men, who have reached out to their Human Resources department asking for help in protecting them against a toxic boss or workplace, only to either have it go nowhere, or be terminated for “behavior” or other reasons. Why would a company allow a Human Resources department to ultimately continue siding with and protecting the company rather than the countless women, and in some cases men, who have raised real concerns of unethical and bullying or unequal treatment? The title Human Resources is deceiving (it should be titled Company Protection Resources, as “human” would be doing what’s best for the “human”) and one that encourages employees to call in with their concerns, and then (seemingly) put processes in place to protect the company against any damage that complaint may have caused.
In the Fortune article dated February 16, 2018 titled “HR Is Not Your Friend. Here’s Why” it describes a class action lawsuit against Microsoft that contends that “Microsoft cheated the plaintiffs represented - roughly 8,630 women engineers and IT specialists - out of 518 promotions and between $100 million and $238 million in pay between 2011 and 2016….But maybe what Microsoft really has is an HR problem. A careful reading of the documents in the lawsuit reveal that the company’s human resources department plays a consistent supporting role in the accounts of the plaintiffs - that of a seemingly disinterested observer. At best, according to the complaint, Microsoft’s HR team frequently appears to have done nothing when employees lodged complaints about serious problems. When HR did get involved, plaintiffs allege, it often made things worse.”
What I experienced with the HR department personally caused incredibly more harm to myself as each time I called, the Human Resources associate would notify my manager of the complaint, and the response I received upon follow up with HR was that “it had been looked into” and they didn’t feel a need to pursue further- And in some cases, they shared that my manager would be putting me on an “action plan”, which, despite my continuous requests for proof to back up the claims that I wasn’t performing were never provided.
During the last 18 months with the newly appointed Regional Executive as well as the Sales Performance Manager, many women shared with me that they had called Human Resources seeking help and protection from the Regional Manager and Sales Performance Manager, and were either never called back, or when they did they were told that Human Resources found no reason to pursue further.
Where do all of these calls to HR go? Why aren’t they quantified? And why are these managers simply shuffled around, and instead those that are making the calls to HR are put in a position to defend themselves against further retaliation, forced out, or terminated, while continuing to live in constant risky fear within their toxic workplace environment?
A Wall Street Journal article updated May 3, 2018 titled “Nike CEO Apologizes for Corporate Culture That Excluded Some Staff” further explains that Nike CEO Mark Parker “apologized to those that felt excluded and felt they didn’t have anyone to turn to about their situation”. This, coming after the Wall Street Journal “in March reported that Nike was investigating allegations of inappropriate behavior after a group of women at the company circulated a survey that reached Mr. Parker….Several senior male employees have abruptly left Nike or resigned their positions since March, including the No. 2 executive Trevor Edwards.”
Why does it take lawsuits for this type of consistently overlooked behavior and complaints to be addressed? And does change ever actually occur, or do we continue to be shown more smoke and mirrors?
Until corporations put EQ processes in place with the goal of protecting their associates, not just the company, we as a society will continue to experience and hear about these scenarios of toxic managers being shuffled around while good employees are churned and burned to protect upper level management.
We CAN do something. As humans, we have to. We have to Speak Up and Stand Strong against unethical and abusive treatment of associates which not only have severe emotional and mental impacts, self esteem and self confidence impacts, but these can and many times are life long and mirror PTSD symptoms.
This has to stop.