Uber has had a rough year on the HR front, and for good reason. They had been plagued by scandals in upper management beforehand, but when a former engineer, Susan Fowler, dropped her bombshell report in February of her year at Uber, a shock wave passed through the company.
The day after the report dropped, Uber’s board assembled a powerful legal team to perform an internal investigation into the harassment claims. By the time the investigation finished, it had claimed one of the co-founders of Uber, CEO Travis Kalanick. Over 100 sexual harassment claims were collected by the investigating firm.
Employment lawyer Phil Gibbons had this to say about the situation: "Startups, especially successful ones, often lean on maverick behavior for their early successes. However, as these startups turn into larger businesses, they need to learn how to adapt their style to the new demands of work. Creating an unsafe work environment won't make your business grow - and depending on the behavior, you may even find yourself facing legal repercussions."
The Recommendations
A couple weeks ago, the full report on what Uber should do to fix its corporate culture problems was released. There’s quite a lot that can be learned from that document. Here are some things HR departments should note.
Give HR Power
One of the core problems was that the CEO held most of the power and didn’t delegate. The company had no COO and Kalanick was focused on company expansion over creating a healthy workplace. While Uber had a Head of Diversity, the position was low-profile.
This meant that the HR department lacked teeth. There was too much focus on expansion and not enough on making sure that pursuit of profit wasn’t corrupting workplace behavior.
Link Executive Compensation to HR Goals
In the pursuit of profits, maverick behavior can reign and create a hostile work environment. Another recommendation was to link executive compensation to adherence to corporate culture statements and codes of conduct. This ensures that executives don’t feel like they can act how they please. HR departments can work with the Board of Directors to recommend compensation changes.
HR Records are Crucial
You would think that the HR department of Uber would have started to keep impeccable records from the very first scandal. However, it appears that records of employee complaints were not well kept. There wasn’t a system for retaining past employee complaints nor punishments for HR professionals who failed to properly keep records.
Inclusive Values
Uber has a set of 14 core values. At least four of these were shown to be used as justifications for unprofessional behavior. Corporate culture statements should never be used in this way. It’s one thing to encourage people to work hard. It’s another thing to set high-performers in a different class.
HR as the Moral Compass
Corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. One of the roles of HR is to ensure that the pursuit of money doesn’t cause people to act in unethical or unprofessional ways. Indirectly, this moral compass component also serves the fiduciary responsibility.
People want to work for and associate with companies that have strong ethical values. Employees want to know that their concerns will be heard and their rights will be protected. HR serves as a check against executive actions that could make the company look bad. They educate everyone about the values a company upholds. It’s a big responsibility.
Uber’s current troubles can be directly traced back to an impotent HR department. By the time that Ms. Fowler’s statement came out, the problems were systemic throughout the company. It remains to be seen whether or not Uber can recover from its HR woes.
