Contemporary Ethical Issues in the Workplace – Sexual Harassment

Contemporary Ethical Issues in the Workplace – Sexual Harassment

In February of 2017, Susan Fowler, an engineer at Uber, wrote in her blog about the sexual harassment that went on at the company. The piece was reported by CNN and also mentioned on Twitter (Horowitz, 2017). The CEO of Uber responded to the accusations made and said stern action would be taken by the Human Resources department. However, the investors and board at Uber were unsatisfied with the CEO’s reaction and deemed it to be too late for him to take action. They then proceeded to demand that he resign from his position as the CEO. Hire our assignment writing services in case your assignment is devastating you. Our team of experts is ready to help.

The blog article detailed that on the first day of working at the company, she joined a team where she was capable of contributing significantly to the success of the project. However, on that first day, the team manager sent her messages soliciting sex from her. She reported the incident to HR and even provided screenshots of the messages. The HR responded by telling her that they would give a stern warning to the manager as it was his first offense. The HR also gave her no choice but to move from the team and look for another, citing that the manager would give her a low score during the performance review assessment and that they could not fire the manager because of his stellar work performance.

The Five I Format of Decision Making (Johnson, 2018)

Identify the problem: The manager was a serial sexual harassment offender. He had done the same thing to other female employees, and yet, HR had chosen to cover up his offense by citing that he was a stellar performer and lying on each occasion that he was a first-time offender. Uber was building and encouraging a toxic work environment.

Investigate the Problem: The toxic culture that Uber created resulted in unethical behavior being encouraged by senior management. Although the company is a private entity, it still had no right to treat its female employees as a lesser being. She had earned her way to getting a job much similar to her male counterparts. She was qualified for her job and was set to add value to the project that the team was working on. However, because the HR sought to side with the offender, Susan was forced to leave the team and join another after much struggle (Fowler, 2017).

Innovate by Generating a Variety of Solutions:  The first option would be to escalate the issue to the legal department of the organization, as HR was unwilling to deal with the offender. The second would be to collect information on whether the manager is indeed a first-time offender or a habitual one. Once it is determined that other female employees have complained and no action has been taken, she will take the third option of reporting to the board. The formal complaint would include signatures from other female victims with a warning stating that they would release the information to the press if no action was taken against the manager and if the victims were discriminated against for reporting the organization for unethical behavior.

Isolate the Solution: The best option is to write a formal complaint to the board and detail the sexual harassment. The formal complaint would also detail the actions taken by the HR. Additionally, the letter, signed by all victims, would issue a warning to the board demanding immediate action failure to which she would report the matter to the tabloids and would also initiate a lawsuit against the manager and the HR department.

Implement the Solution: After consulting with her female colleagues who had also faced sexual harassment from the manager and other male employees, Susan chose to write the incidents on the blog, which was immediately spotted by newspaper tabloids. CNN and other news houses reported on the issue, and this led to a series of events. Uber’s CEO, Travis Kalanick, issued a statement some hours after Fowler’s post. In the statement, he said that the incidents reported by Susan “is abhorrent and against everything Uber stands for and believes in.” Kalanick denied ever knowing of the claims made by Susan; he added that he had instructed the chief HR officer “to conduct an urgent investigation into these allegations” (Fiegerman & O’Brien, 2017).  After an investigation that took months and looked into the culture at Uber by US AG Eric Holder, a series of events followed. The SVP Emil Michael resigned, 20 employees were fired, and dozens more were out on compulsory counseling or training. At the end of the investigation, Uber had no CFO, COO, CMO, or president.

Reflection

I chose to use the Five I’s for decision-making because this was an already solved situation that did not need much analysis. Susan could have taken a more firm action other than writing a piece on her blog post. She should have been courageous enough to report the matter to the tabloids earlier on. Her failure to do so was, in a way, encouraging the toxic work environment to continue thriving. However, the end result was what she could have hoped for: the perpetrators of unethical behavior were publicly exposed and fired.

References

Fiegerman, S. & O’Brien, S.A. (2017). Uber CEO takes leave of absence amid crises. https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/13/technology/business/uber-harassment-report/index.html.

Fowler, S. (2017).  Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber. https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber

Horowitz, J. (2017). Uber CEO orders ‘urgent’ investigation after sex harassment allegations. https://money.cnn.com/2017/02/19/technology/uber-harassment-investigation/index.html?iid=EL

Johnson, C. E. (2018). Organizational ethics: A practical approach. Sage Publications.

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In this exercise, you will identify and analyze the last two contemporary ethical issues in the workplace. This issue should involve an ethical conflict drawn from your personal experience or from news reports. (Be sure to protect the privacy of others if you choose a personal case). If you are unsure of the suitability of a particular issue for the case, contact your mentor as soon as possible for approval or help in choosing an issue. Construct your case following these steps.

Contemporary Ethical Issues in the Workplace – Sexual Harassment

1. Provide a description: Describe the situation in enough detail for the reader to understand the background and the issues. Write this description in paragraph form.
2. Apply a decision-making format: Resolve the issue using Kidder’s Ethical Checkpoints or the Five “I” format from Chapter 3. You may use lists for some steps, such as when specifying possible solutions.
3. Reflect: Evaluate your decision and the format you followed. Identify what you learned from your analysis.

(Objective 5.6)

Description

In each contemporary case, you will identify and analyze a contemporary ethical issue in the workplace drawn from your personal experience or news reports. (Be sure to protect the privacy of others if you choose a personal case).

• Target Length: 3 to 4 pages (750 to 1000 words)
• Description of Task: Each paper is fully described in the pertinent assignment.