Uber

(Sriram, Danely, Alvin, Xeon)

After reading the two blog posts from women who worked at Uber, it was clear that unethical behavior was allowed to propagate around the company. Both Susan Fowler and Amy Vertino experienced sexual harassment and “stifling” to the point where they couldn’t take it any longer and quit. Contemplating the culture of Uber taken from these blog posts, we can try and understand how and why the toxic culture and was allowed to grow, but also what can be done to change the current situation.

 To see how the culture developed, we should probably look at the macro and micro levels of the company. From the macro level, the management and HR departments in both blog posts was extremely unethical with its handling of internal issues, showing favoritism towards certain individuals and citing that they were basically too important to lose and lying to keep up the illusion that they were doing their jobs. When Susan Fowler reported the manager that harassed her to HR, she was told that it was the man’s “first offense”, and that he was a high performer. However, when she talked to other women she realized that the man had actually harassed them as well. In Amy Vertino’s case, HR told her that the man was “highly valuable to [the CEO of Uber] Travis ”. In both of these cases we can see that HR committed unethical actions because of obedience to authority and bounded ethicality. HR wanted to please Travis Kalanick, the CEO of Uber and keep on a hard working worker which would benefit the company, so they turned a blind eye to the numerous complaints. However in doing so, they created an environment where employees felt like their concerns were not being handled, and that they were effectively replaceable. As a result, the author of both posts left the company, and Uber has been under fire for their archaic handling of sexual harassment. 

From the micro level, each individual case of sexual harassment was isolated from one another because of the lies told by HR. According to Fowler, all the women who had experienced inappropriate behavior with the same man were told that they were the only case, and that really takes power away from the people being subjected to the harassment. They can’t find power in numbers. The dwindling number of female employees caused by this unwelcoming environment also became a contributing factor to the unethical behavior of the employees. The male coworkers that were not taking part in the abuse were condoning it. Vertino said that “Mike #2” called her a “whiny little bitch” amongst a group of other employees. Their response: “two of the men in the room looked at each other and laughed while the rest of the men, like [Vertino], were shocked”. This are obvious cases of conformity bias and moral muteness. The first two men act this way because they see their higher-up getting away with this type of behavior on a daily basis and believe it is acceptable to act in this manner also. As for the other men, although they themselves might be against this type of behavior, they would not voice their beliefs or stand up for her. Because the male employees were not subjected to this sexism and didn’t want to compromise themselves at work, they sat there and did nothing.

To prevent this, employees at every level should understand that behavior at Uber described Fowler and Vertino were unacceptable and should be addressed immediately. Hiding internal problems in the name of keeping “high-performance employees” would only further the issues in the internal structure of the company, driving away actual hard-working employees with a true passion in their field. Although Uber had “resolved” the problem by essentially forcing Fowler and Vertino to seek employment elsewhere, the root of this issue (harassment, obedience to authority, and bounded ethicality) remains firmly entrenched in Uber. Until the leadership and the management realizes the significance of the underlying wrongdoing, there will only be more Fowlers and Vertinos not only in Uber, but in every professional setting.

All the small and big aggressions can build up. Reading about the toxic environment at Uber, it’s easy to see how it came to be. It almost feels surreal that this kind of environment exists, but it all stems from an incident of abuse being allowed. These single incidents are all being allowed, if not by individual employees, then the higher-ups (HR and the CEO). Aggressors don’t face punishment, and it becomes a cycle that others soon begin to follow and accept. To avoid creating an unwelcoming environment, individual incidents should be handled appropriately. Sometimes this could simply mean having a conversation voicing your concerns with the aggressor or reporting them to HR. This is a step people all employees have to take, otherwise, they are condoning an abusive or unwelcoming environment.

Fowler, Susan. Reflecting on One Very Strange Year at Uber, February 19, 2017.

Vertino, Amy. I am an Uber Survivor, Medium, February 24, 2017.