this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023
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Transcription by u/Elnachohat
Transcription if you're having trouble hearing:
(speaker 1, Linus) So we called this meeting because it's come to our attention that we need to have a quick chat about the best way to handle HR related feedback and rumors. We won't be giving any names for what I hope are extraordinarily obvious reasons, but what we can do is give you the following guidelines for problem solving and conflict resolution.
Sorry that this is all boring and corporate, but here we are. Number one, always stand up for what's right. We're only a team as long as we're all working together and working for each other. That's the most important one. Number two, always reflect on your own personal experiences and use your common sense. Few things in life are truly black and white. Number three, always wait to hear both sides of a story before passing your own judgment. Be cautious when you know that one side is bound by legal and ethical disclosure guidelines, when the other is not. Carefully consider what it says about the character of someone who would engage in that type of gossip against someone who has no power to defend themselves.
Number four, always encourage openness and transparency. If you have a problem, you need to speak up. We want to fix it. If you receive feedback about somebody else at this company, the first response is, have you spoken with this person? Followed closely by, you need to speak with this person. We don't solve interpersonal issues here, or really anywhere in your life, if you wish to live in a drama free zone, by engaging in water cooler politicking. So, if for any reason that individual is not comfortable approaching the person they're having a conflict with, we have a chain that they're supposed to follow.
So first, you advise them to take the problem to their manager. Followed by me or Yvonne, followed by our third party HR firm. I hope that you all trust that we're here to make this a safe, fun, and productive workplace, and we won't tolerate mistreatment of any of our team members.
If you have any reason to believe otherwise, then I refer you again to point number four, which is to address the issue with the individual directly, or bring it to me or Yvonne, or bring it to our third party HR firm. Since I'm not at liberty to share any details about what occurred, uh, all I can do is ask that you trust me and Yvonne.
Um, some of you know us very well, I've been here a very long time, um, some of you have not been here for as long, but I like to think that whether you've been here for nine years or nine days, you're here for a reason and you believe that we are utmost to run this company with integrity and compassion.
Um, We can't solve problems we don't know about though, so on that note, I'd like to invite anyone who has concerns about a fellow team member or about a manager to submit their feedback either by speaking with their manager, me or Yvonne directly, or if you would prefer to provide your feedback anonymously, we have an option for that as well.
It's the manager and co worker feedback form. Uh, Yvonne, if you're not aware of it, show of hands who is not aware of it. Hey, a lot of people aren't aware of it. Good, so now we all know. There's an anonymous form, if for whatever reason you're not comfortable, (inaudible) you can talk to me or Yvonne directly about it (inaudible) in the general chat.
It's a safe space to provide us ideas for improvement, or if you're consumed by the holiday spirit and you want to say nice things, you can do that too. Does anybody else have any questions?
Not a single questions? Wow, that must have been a really good speech.
(speaker 2, James)You gonna dance on that table, or just stand on it?
(speaker 1, Linus)That's it! So, um, Yvonne, did you have anything you wanted to add?
(speaker 3, Yvonne)(inaudible) Somebody said (inaudible) if you guys want to sanitize your hands, help yourself with free (inaudible)?
(speaker 1, Linus)Yeah, that was actually just totally random timing. It came up the stairs a moment ago. Dennis is on it. Alright. Thank you everyone. Have a wonderful and, uh, productive rest of your day. And weekend.
EDIT: added who was speaking. Don't know who speaker 2 is.
EDIT 2: I was told Speaker 2 is James
EDIT 3: Ivonne > Yvonne
EDIT 4: "near Yvonne directly" > me or Yvonne directly" and fixed that last thing Yvonne said
Sounds like a pretty standard meeting imo. Doesn't that mean they haven't committed transgressions or don't need to change. But for a company of their size at the time there is nothing particularly wrong with what was said here.
There was a comment a bit similar to yours on the original reddit thread and I think it got a good reply by the OP. The main criticism was that their structure for escalating such problems is flawed. Talking to your manager about his/her misbehaviour isn't exactly the solution here.
Yup. It seems to me that Madison's case is one which anyone at LMG who cares, would not have been ok with, but that their policies have big enough cracks that it was still allowed to happen, and she didn't have an effective way to get herself heard.
Wanting to do the right thing, doesn't mean you automatically succeed in doing so.
I can pretty much guarantee that this is not the only case. This is the tip of the iceberg.
Sure it's not necessarily a good structure but it is super common in tons of corporations and they also have alternatives. They are giving themselves as an option if you do not have a particular problem with said manager you can talk to them about problems in the office. it is not necessarily ideal for handling everything and can have its issues But it is often a first line of defense for interpersonal employee conflicts. The company I work for and trust me its very large has a similar structure. People can talk to managers or they can call the 1-800 HR line. If they do talk to a manager there is a specific guidelines for how it's escalated and reported within the company but trust me my company is much larger than LTT and they may not have those same policies in place yet.
I am not commenting on the allegations or who perpetrated them or what happened I want to make that clear. I am merely commenting on the fact that this meeting recording is nothing out of the ordinary. And is typically a structure you would see for a company this size and up. There were clearly problems in the system. And I am not going to discount anything anyone went through. And I sure hope these external investigations shed light on what exactly happened and the people responsible are held accountable. That said still don't see much wrong here.
I don't like that comment by op. This structure is pretty standard and I think it's clear that if the manager was the problem that the options to discuss with higher ups or 3rd party HR are also there. Their comment that 3rd party HR is there to protect the company is also only a half-truth as letting these issues run rampant is a huge liability to the company itself (as we're seeing right now). HR would not doing its job properly by pushing issues like these under the rug.
Even worse, saying that HR always takes the side of the employer is a meme that discourages employees in bad situations from pursuing their very real options. This perception could have continued to her situation. If HR doesn't do their job, you can always escalate further.
If you're ever in a situation, even at a corporate situation, where you don't feel you can escalate an issue through the proper channels. You can always write a letter, certify it, send it to the company's headquarters legal counsel and HR. You can do it anonymously, because it's the mail which the company doesn't have any control over, and you know they will get it. And because it's documented and copied to three different departments they will act on it. You always have the method of anonymously contacting a company. If it's an interpersonal issue, where you will be identified no matter what, you at least guarantee that there's a paper trail.
If that's insufficient to notify people then you should be consulting with a labor attorney.
That’s not the only option though. They could talk to her or the heads of the company. Yes they can talk to their manager too, but they have options.
Nahh, I don't know about you but I've never been in a corporate meeting where an employee publicly makes a stripper joke at the owner, during a meeting about sexual harassment. On top of that no one in the room reacts to it, including the head of HR present. Their work environment is beyond fucked.
There was nothing to suggest that meeting was about sexual harassment.
How do you think the issue of handling HR related feedback and rumours was initiated?
I don't know, but they didn't talk about sexual harassment once. It could have been prompted by anything.
For what it's worth, I believe her story. But there could be another context to this meeting. We just don't know.
ETA: my reply ended up on the wrong comment, I think it's a Lemmy bug.
Really, of all the elements in my comment, that is what you're going to argue with?
My reply ended up on the wrong comment, sorry. I think Lemmy has a bug because this has happened to me multiple times..
In response to your comment, yeh that was an unusual thing to hear and I work in an industry that is very much still old-school in terms of management (oil & gas).
I've done so many years worth of manager training in California. One of the big things they drill into your head is you should always tell anybody to report things to HR or their manager, never "well did you first try to hash it out with the person harassing you?"
They said they don't solve interpersonal problems with water cooler gossiping. It's a long confusing sentence so I don't blame you for missing that.
It sounds like you don't have much experience in a white collar workplace.
2 and 3 are pretty standard rumor control parameters. And it is true, no workplace is in the business of solving interpersonal conflict, but what he's speaking to is just lower-level things amounting to just not liking someone, not real problems like abuse or harassment.
Huge, huge difference between “ we understand that it can feel intimidating, but please speak to your manager, HR, or our third party service if you have a problem, as speaking with anyone else about the issue is actually counterproductive.” And “what does it say about the kind of person someone is, that they’d gossip about a coworker?” (Especially with the context that the “gossip” is a report of mistreatment)
He's minimizing it. If it were truly just about low level gossip and 'not liking someone' they wouldn't have this meeting.
It’s not ideal in a few ways, but I think the bigger thing here is at least one employee is willing to risk their job to prove that they agree with her and use the recording as identity proof
or that lmg records everything in that room for cases like that
The video seems to suggest that it's a phone on a table, not any official recording equipment.
One thing I noticed from a brief glance is that they mentioned that they have anonymous report form to the verge, while hiding the fact a lot of people are not aware such form existed at the time Madison worked there.
Just bad training and communication within the company. Things that need to be fixed
If you're at the point where you're hiring an outsider to investigate, you effectively have an obligation to let them do their job. That means staying out of the way, because anything you do poisons their inquiry.
If you weren't hiring an outsider and were investigating internally, you still wouldn't talk about it in a fucking meeting until you know what happened. You talk to each person individually to get their account. "Interrogating" witnesses in a group both violates the privacy of the (alleged) victim and lowers the quality of their recollection of events because they get shaded by everyone else.
The fact that people weren't aware of the appropriate method of elevating complaints is bad (though not as unusual as it should be). The rest is pretty standard.
I think you are correct, this meeting in isolaton is fine. The indirect implications, however, is that this meeting constitutes the full internal review and response to an employee leaving in a disgruntled state. I obviously don't know that is true, however the fact that linus has admitted to being shocked by the allegations suggests that a the very least an effective HR exit interview hasn't happened.
If I was running a company, regardless of my position on personal care about my employees wellbeing, I'd want meetings such as the one in this post a routine. Not only 'when something happens'. I'd want one on one interviews in the cases like this. So that when things like a former employee comes out with allegations like this I'm not shocked, because I already know and tried to deal with them reasonable or I have solid grounds to claim that reasonable effort was undertaken to know these things were happening.
I don't know how it is in Canada, but C suite and board can have personal liability with duty of care to employees in Australia. Ignorance is not generally an excuse for a good reason.
If this in fact happened immediatly after Madison leaving, then it's worrying. If it's just a random meeting that has to happen for other reasons, then it's fine. All depends upon context
There are a number of red flags here. 'We can't know about problems if you don't tell us about them' is bullshit. It is not on the employees to ensure that people don't get harassed or mistreated.
The 'sorry we have to be corporate' at the start is also problematic. Dealing with toxic work culture is not 'boring corporate stuff' and leadership should not make that suggestion.
The whole thing feels like a teacher reprimanding a bunch of unruly teens about classroom drama. Which seems misguided at best. If your company is infested with gossip, badmouthing and harassment, it's not because you happened to hire all the gossipy people, it's because you're creating a bad work culture that reinforces that kind of behavior, and you need to address that instead of blaming the people who work for you. Managers don't go around berating colleagues for the heck of it, they do it because it is accepted normalized behavior. And that starts from the top.
This is such a braindead comment. Even a company with an on-site HR team can't know about something unless someone tells them. What do you think they're like constantly reviewing cameras and recording all employee conversations or something? The first step is to speak up.
It absolutely does seem like they have a bad company culture. Even James comment was a little misguided. Once again not speaking on the allegations. But you have to remember this team grew from a very small personal relationship. There are going to be major oversights as a result of that. Especially when it comes to hr matters. It is absolutely horrible what happened and it's even worse that it did not seem to be properly addressed. I hope they properly address these issues and course correct.
But your comment started inherently flawed. They genuinely cannot know or address a problem if someone doesn't tell them.
There are quite a few steps to take before counting on people reporting sexual harassment. Train management properly and regularly. Make sure all layers of management are 100% aware of what kind of behavior is and isn't tolerated. Immediately take action on small, seemingly insignificant incidents. Remove or lower any barriers to reporting incidents, etc. I'm assuming here that those things didn't happen, as the company grew quickly and it was probably assumed by Linus that the chummy goofy atmosphere would just scale up and people would be decent to each other. That was a mistake. None of that is mentioned in this speech, nor is any future change in managing company culture. He's basically blaming people for not using the channels that are already in place.
If anyone in that room was experiencing any form of bullying or harassment by their manager, they would not feel reassured by this speech, quite to the contrary. That's a failure of management. Linus doesn't seem to understand what a huge risk people take by speaking out, and how it's not something you 'just do'.
It's good Linus stepped down as CEO since then, he is obviously not great at running a company this size day-to-day, but stamping out a bad culture is tougher than just switching out the CEO.