Do You Have a $5.3 Million Budget for Sexual Harassment Claims?

Thanks to our state's Freedom of Information Law (also known as FOIL), lately the local press has been peeling back the layers of the cost to settle sexual harassment claims made against state workers over a four-year period to the tune of $5.3 million. In no particular order, these settled claims totaling $5.3 million include allegations of:

• Inappropriate touching / groping
• Inappropriate comments and actions
• Requests for dates
• Repeated retaliation against those who filed sexual harassment complaints.

The state worker targets of these settled claims come from all organizational levels and backgrounds, including but not limited to elected officials, legislature staffers, managers and prison guards. No matter how large the organization is, $5.3 million is a hefty chunk of change in unplanned expenditures to pay out. And the salt in the financial wound is not only that the $5.3 million is funded by taxpayers, but is also FOILable, e.g. discoverable to the general public. Not the reputational / financial data that any organization wants blasted in the news.

If you don't have $5.3 million budgeted for sexual harassment claims (as well as the additional funds that would be needed to manage the negative publicity should the claims become public and featured in the press), do you follow the advice of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to employers to best prevent sexual harassment? "Prevention is the best tool to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace. Employers are encouraged to take steps necessary to prevent sexual harassment from occurring.

• They should clearly communicate to employees that sexual harassment will not be tolerated.
• They can do so by providing sexual harassment training to their employees; and
• By establishing an effective complaint or grievance process, and;
• Taking immediate and appropriate action when an employee complains."

The cost (payroll, subject-matter expertise, etc.) to train your employees, managers and executives as well as to set up the proper expectations, policies, due-process complaint and investigative infrastructure in your organization to prevent sexual harassment can be as little as .0005% of a potential $5.3 million budget for sexual harassment settlement claims. Sounds like a cost-savings home-run to the bottom line to me.

Love is the Answer at Work

"Love is the answer, and you know that for sure; Love is a flower, you've got to let it grow."

- John Lennon

I was trained as a Diversity Facilitator at General Electric.  Back then, the focus was just on gender and race diversity and inclusion, which continue to be large opportunity areas at work and in the larger society to this day.

One of the most important concepts I learned during that training was the concept of transforming the reaction as marginalized individuals to ignorance, bigotry and discrimination from anger and retribution to compassion and education.  "When you come from a place of compassion,  instead of anger," our instructor Carol Brantley taught us.  "Then you can create an opening, a conversation:  where you can potentially engage the less-informed as students, teaching compassion because you're modeling it.  And in it that opening, you have the opportunity to teach inclusion, too."

After church today, I observed and participated in a panel discussion supporting The Trevor Project, the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth.  Today's discussion focused on preventing and intervening on bullying in our schools:  the leading driver of crisis and suicide for our youth today. The wonderful panel members - advocates, students, teachers and members of my own FUSS congregation (FYI, we are a Welcoming Congregation, proud supporters of the recently enacted Marriage Equality Act in New York state), also echoed that earlier training of approaching the issue of bullying through compassion, education, and in the case at Mohanasen High School, Peer Mediation.  What a wonderful new tool:  healing bullying through peace:  the source of all human conflict are needs met and unmet.  As a mediator myself, I was heartened.

I was further encouraged by the impending July 1, 2012 enactment of the NYS Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) which states:

...that NO student shall be subjected to harassment or discrimination by employees or students on school property or at a school function based on their actual or perceived race, color, weight, national origin, ethnic group, religion, religious practice, disability, sexual orientation, gender, or sex.

Frankly, for as I have explained to my son Noah:  if students don't learn how to treat each other respectfully at home and at school during their childhood and teenage years (and in their adult relationships with friends, relatives and spouses):  they will be much less successful as adults at work.  I've witnessed it my entire career:  disrespectful, bullying, demeaning and/or dominating / controlling behavior does not win friends or influence people in the long term.  No matter how talented or smart you are:  if you cannot consistently and authentically demonstrate mutual respect and inclusion at work (to peers, subordinates, and even more puzzling, managers and customers), it will eventually bite you and your career squarely on the ass. Your timing and mileage may vary, but what comes around does indeed go around.  Your attempts to marginalize others, intended or unconscious, to give yourself status, attention and power will in fact and eventually marginalize you.

And if you must suffer those losses in order to learn this lesson:  be the student and embrace this lesson of failure as the gift it truly is. Ask for feedback and coaching.  Take a searching and fearless inventory of yourself.  Take responsibility. Forgive yourself and the adults who misinformed and neglected you, placing you on this erroneous path. Learn, especially compassion for yourself and those around you. Grow. Transform. Model and teach what you've learned:  encouraging the growth and standing on the side of:  love at work.

Diamonds or Toads: How Your Hiring Authorities Help (or Hurt) Your Company's Reputation

My brother teases me for retaining my 20 year-old AOL email address.  Call me sentimental:  it's the account Joel and I created the year we were married.  It doesn't have any numbers in it.  My AOL account is a repository for merchant emails, so I basically skim it once a day.

When I opened up AOL this morning, I saw the story on the news feed about the store manager who allegedly told the applicant with 1.5 arms that he would not be able to work in her store because of products placed on a high shelf. (Apparently, the store manager experienced interview amnesia and forgot the store had both a step-stool and a ladder, standard gear for a retail store).  The applicant appears to be a nice, stand-up guy with 11 years of uninterrupted service and retail work experience and a sterling reference from his last manager.  The same applicant who the store manager during a 15-minute interview also allegedly ridiculed for working at Victoria's Secret while allegedly simultaneously sexually harassing her co-interviewer about her bra size.

What immediately popped in my mind was not my 20+ years of hiring and HR legal experience:  it was the Toads and Diamonds fable.  You know:  the fable about the two sisters who are tested by a fairy at the well disguised as a thirsty old woman.

The kind sister, who immediately gives the old woman a drink of water, is blessed with the gift of diamonds, pearls and flowers spilling from her mouth every time she speaks.

The nasty sister, who shooed the old woman away instead of giving her a drink of water, is given the curse of toads and vipers falling from her mouth every time she speaks; and is consequently shunned and shortly thereafter dies in a corner of the forest.

The kind sister wins marriage with a prince she meets in the forest with her new gift.   The Middle Ages' version of career success for women.  But I digress.

Hiring authorities at every level, from CEO to store manager, assume great power and equally great responsibility.

Most hiring authorities understand this role, and represent their companies adequately:  that is, they don't violate the law during the interview or engage in insulting behavior, leaving their job applicants with a neutral experience. No diamonds or toads.  The prediction would be that their customers have a neutral, shredded wheat-type experience, too.  Not the best stance against their competitors, but not the worst.

Some hiring authorities are on a power-trip doomed for personal and reputational failure, acting like the capos at the gates of Auschwitz treating job applicants like prisoners of war.  "Go to the right, and I'll grant you the privilege of working for me," the little power-mad voice in their heads sings.  "Go to the left and be condemned to continued unemployment."  Certainly not freedom through work.  And certainly not companies you would want support with your patronage or your employment.  A nest of vipers and toads to make Indiana Jones sweat, indeed.

And then there are the bleeding-edge hiring authorities and companies who get it. Who have clear values, visions and missions, and know how to walk the talk accordingly and consistently. Who recruit for the diversity in their candidates that equals or exceeds the diversity of their customers.  Who hire managers and hiring authorities who also walk the talk accordingly and consistently, and make available those who don't to industry.  Who understand all too well that their reputations pivot equally on how they recruit their employees and how they recruit their customers. And that the strategies for both employee and customer recruitment / retention are inextricably linked for long-term success.  These are the diamonds and pearls of the leading companies that we want to patronize as customers and where we want to work as employees, leaders and vendors.

Personally, I find diamonds and pearls most becoming.

Taking a Stand Against Bullying is Good Business

At the end of the last school year, with a substitute teacher at the helm of the class, my son's best friend punched him in the stomach.  Noah, with the intent of being helpful, pointed out a misspelling on the project his friend had slaved over and was about to submit.  Noah's friend, whose forte is not spelling, lashed out at Noah in frustration.  The punch surprised and hurt both of them.  They were both sent to the principal's office, and Noah's friend spent the whole school day there.

I saw the friend's mother that night at a school event that Noah's friend could not attend as punishment for the punch.  The look on her face was difficult for both of us.  "It's okay," I said.  "It sounds like the school took care of it."  Noah's school, like many progressive schools, has instituted anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies, and more importantly, follow through in their enforcement.

She brightened.  "Yes.  I think they went a bit overboard - I mean, it was just rough-housing.  But they can't act that way at school."

"No," I responded kindly but clearly.   "We don't hit in our house.  And it was a violation of school rules."

"Yes," she said, and we parted the awkward company.

Noah also thought his friend's punishment was a bit extreme.  "I'm not upset anymore,"  Noah reported.  "Why did he have to stay in the principal's office all day?"

I thought for a moment, and spoke out of my own experience.  "Because, honey:  if he doesn't learn to control himself and act respectfully now in school, he'll be fired from his job when he's an adult for that type of behavior.  It's for his own good."  Noah's eyes widened, and he nodded.  He's 9 years old, and he gets it.  Mom has fired adults for hitting and bullying each other.

Taking a stand against bullying, regardless of age or organization, is taking a stand for inclusiveness, which in turn, is good business.

How is it good business?  Banishing bullying from your organization will help minimize the chance that your customers will be treated badly by your employees.  Simple as that.  The internal organizational behavioral norms and values absolutely dictate how your employees interact with your customers.

Without that integrity between internal and external behaviors and values, your customers -- and your business -- are at risk.  It is a paradigm bereft of all authenticity.  And your customers crave authentic interactions.

Taking a stand against bullying also minimizes the needs for third-party involvement, e.g. proposed and current anti-bullying legislation and regulations.  If you're keeping the house of your organization clean, what impact will such mandates really have on your organization?  This stand also minimizes the risk of violating other current harassment and other laws and regulations protecting employees.

An anti-bullying stance is also an educational stand.  Not only only is risk minimized, but the potential for enlightenment and re-direction is possible even for adult learners:  a manifestation for my continual hope for resurrection on the human level.  If not:  then organization bullies need to be made available to industry, as they say.

Noah and his friend remain pals.

Don't Mess Your Nest: The Secret to Employee Handbook Compliance (Business, Leadership and Career Success Too)

The ongoing postmortem on the abrupt resignation and departure of Hewlett-Packard's former CEO Mark V. Hurd due to violations of H.P.’s standards of business conduct and an allegedly unfounded sexual harassment claim continues to fascinate me as an HR and Change Management practitioner.

However, as a kid born and bred in New York City and the daughter of a Marine, a simple but visceral reaction keeps rearing its authentic head:

Don't Mess Your Nest.

My friend Carol, who had a successful career as a state government executive, helped me with this more polite version of what I learned early in life.  It was a classic NYS Downstate-kid/ Upstate-kid exchange.  "Carol, do you know a cleaner version of "Don't S*** Where You Eat?"  I asked recently.  "Yes," Carol answered immediately.  "Don't Mess Your Nest."

I liked it.  It reminded me of an eagle's nest, and for me personally, eagles are great metaphors on several levels, not withstanding a symbol of leadership and business success.  Much more nuanced than my Lower-East-Side version.

"Why do you want to know?"  Carol asked.  "Personal  theory I've developed over the years,"  I replied.  "Rather than writing a magnum opus of an HR Handbook and policies for an organization, I believe that one phrase covers it all.  And if all employees at all levels subscribed to 'Don't Mess Your Nest,' we wouldn't have to worry about an employee handbook,  and consequently work life would be a lot easier for all of us. Also, my 9 year-old son is an experienced Googler, and I have to maintain some decorum."  Carol chuckled.

I know what you may be thinking: I earn my livelihood writing employee handbooks as well as intervening on and subsequently remediating all sorts of dysfunctional workplace behavior at all organizational levels. Some potentially (but never on my watch to date, thankfully) newsworthy, some annoying and frustrating, and some just downright sad.   I approach this part of my role as a mediator, and that's why it hasn't worn me down, so what am I complaining about?  Because it takes time and energy away from more constructive and strategic efforts to build business and organizational success at all levels.

To the point I made in an earlier post:  in the dual role of HR executive and internal Executive recruiter, I would have to clean up my own mess (and credibility), HR-wise, if I inserted a candidate with the issues below into the hiring process and they were subsequently hired. It certainly motivates the drive on the front-end to place and promote quality candidates and leadership bench.

It also helps when the organization's governance structure shares the same success values.

In the latest New York Times article on Hurd's departure,  Charles House, a former longtime H.P. engineer who now runs a research program at Stanford University, in addition to his pleasure at Hurd's departure, makes this poignant observation about H.P.'s last 3 CEOs:  "What H.P. needs in its next leader is “someone with Carly’s (Fiorina) strategic sense, Mark’s (Hurd) operational skills, and Lew’s (Platt) emotional intelligence.”

Amen, brother:  a snapshot job spec for leadership success.

Sadly, a snapshot that Hurd did not fit.  He is further described in the NYT article as having the strategic sense of a gnat, and knew only how to cut costs. He was a cost-cutter who indulged himself.   His combined compensation for just his last two years was more than $72 million — a number that absolutely outraged employees since their jobs were the ones being cut. 

Hurd's cost-cutting as reported in the NYT was for the short-term hits as well:  he cut back significantly on R&D (the article notes that H.P. consequently had no product response to the iPad); he dictated that H.P. executives had to resign from all civic boards, and he cut off many of H.P.’s philanthropic activities.

In recent internal surveys, the NYT article reports, nearly two-thirds of H.P. employees said they would leave if they got an offer from another company — a staggering number. <Clearly> Hurd didn’t have the support of his people. He was also observed to be incredibly rude and demeaning, and relied on the fear factor. Although he was good at holding executives’ feet to the fire, he seemed to be the only one benefiting from H.P.’s success. He alienated himself from the people who might have protected him <Which would explain the decidedly odd publicity originating from H.P. about an allegedly resolved sexual harassment complaint.> One observer's summation:  Hurd lacked the moral character to be CEO.

Yet he was allowed to carry on for 5 years, as the ongoing postmortem seems to suggest, because of his significant but short-term positive hits to H.P.'s bottom line.  And this has all played out publicly and widely, to former, current and future customers, shareholders and employees, bruising both the reputations of Hurd and H.P.  Ouch.

Hurd sounds like a fictional character constructed to hammer home the authentic concepts illustrated by House's Stanford colleague Bob Sutton in his seminal leadership / organizational effectiveness book, The No-Asshole Rule (Sorry Noah, that's the title of the book).  But sadly, for Hurd, H.P. and its former and current employees, truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

The Hurd saga is also a cautionary tale about an organization off-course.  Joe Nocera, who wrote this latest NYT article, summed it up elegantly:  "H.P. says its board should be applauded for not letting Mr. Hurd off the hook. But this is just after-the-fact spin. In fact, the directors should be called out for acting like the cowards they are. Mr. Hurd’s supposed peccadilloes were a smoke screen for the real reason they got rid of an executive they didn’t trust and employees didn’t like." 

Worried about how to best follow organizational policies, guidelines and handbooks?  How to guide your employees to do the same?

And moreover, build a foundation that will ensure career and business success?

Don't Mess Your Nest.   

Because it's especially damaging and discouraging when eagles do it.


As always:  a successful week to all!