Uber bans 'brilliant jerks', will train staff on Why Diversity Matters Throughout its recent sexism and scofflaw scandals, Uber hasn't denied that its culture has some invidious aspects. And now the company has promised to get rid of them. Uber on Tuesday let it be known it staged an all-hands meeting in which board member Arianna Huffington declared “Going forward there can be no room at Uber …
Why do I have the impression that action was only taken now because it starts to affect profits? Ditto all the talk from major shareholders - only now?
That their numbers are still going up is a nice way to avoid mentioning that the ramp up is slowing, that whole #DeleteUber campaign has done some serious damage, and the reasons for that are easy: Uber treats its customers like it treats its staff. That is an attitude that comes from and is enabled by a senior level, so coaching STAFF may give some change, but it's not where the problem reside IMHO.
I don't think that it is the absence of profits that matters. If that were so, we never would have seen the startup bubble with so many young companies bleeding cash yet still looking like darlings. Well, until Chapter 11, that is.
The thing is, Uber is operating in the billions range, and that matters. It is what makes Uber a company with weight. The fact that, like a young bully, it doesn't yet know how to throw its weight around properly is neither here nor there.
"The thing is, Uber is operating in the billions range, and that matters."
To big to fail? :-)
Never mind, Uber don't employ anyone anyway and their drivers are all self-employed part timers who happen to be driving in certain directions and make a little extra on the side by giving someone a lift </sarc>
Let's hope nobody chokes on anything because I think the Heimlich maneuver would count as a "brilliant jerk".
For starters, "brilliant jerk" is not a category, secondly it's not the one they need to address.
Since when was "jerk" synonymous with sexist, racist, homophobic, misogynist etc. etc.
Seems to me they're leaving the door open for the current management to carry on being dicks.
... turned up to 11.
>“focus on diversity and inclusion” Uber's watchwords. She also revealed that the company will soon
>deliver training on “Why Diversity Matters; How to be an Ally; and Building Inclusive Teams.”
Another HR wonk demonstrating why every other department in a company sees them as little more than a self important bunch of fools who think they run the company but generally know feck all about what the company does or how it does it. The personal dept was the place that people who couldn't do anything else generally ended up - renaming it to HR hasn't changed that in the slightest.
Would this training be delivered by the same HR people that told Susan Fowler there was nothing they could do because the alleged harasser was a high performer? If so, why are the leaders of that group still at the company?
Uber's sin was not just having jerks on staff, but having an HR function that failed to protect the employee. Heads should be rolling all over that firm right now.
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