In interviews with 15 female Apple employees, both current and former, the Financial Times has found that Mohr’s frustrating experience with the People group has echoes across at least seven Apple departments spanning six US states.
The women shared allegations of Apple’s apathy in the face of misconduct claims. Eight of them say they were retaliated against, while seven found HR to be disappointing or counterproductive.
This story is based on those interviews and discussions with other employees, internal emails from Apple’s People team, four exit contracts written by lawyers for Apple, and anonymous employee reviews.
There’s some real blood-boiling stuff in here.
Emily says she felt that HR treated her like she was the problem. “I was told [the alleged rapist] went on a ‘career experience’ for six months, and they said: ‘maybe you’ll be better by the time he’s back?’”
Or this one, where a colleague undressed another colleague as she was sleeping, and snapped photos of her. Apple’s response?
“Although what he did was reprehensible as a person and potentially criminal, as an Apple employee he hasn’t violated any policy in the context of his Apple work,” HR wrote. “And because he hasn’t violated any policy we will not prevent him seeking employment opportunities that are aligned with his goals and interests.”
Apple seems like a fun work environment for women.
I think people who attack/harm/berate others are despicable, but at the same time I think its a bad precedent for employers to be arbiters of what happens outside of work. These two views are very difficult to reconcile. :-/
Agreed. Like people who get fired for showing pictures of them out drinking with friends. Companies should not act like they own their employees. At the same time, if you’re walking around yelling that you work for Apple, and are mooning people who are buying the latest Samsung phone… well then I could see that getting into a situation that is kind of pants… 😛
In the US you can basically fire anyone, for any reason (or no reason), if you see fit. So if there’s a legit, proven complaint you just fire the misconducting employee. In Europe it’s more difficult, with a lot of worker protection, but even then you can send someone on paid leave while seeking termination of the contract via legal means.
jalnl,
“What Small Business Owners Should Know About Wrongful Termination Lawsuits ”
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/344232
If there’s a union involved, you’d better follow its bylaws too.
It’s one thing if you are firing them for actual misconduct at work, but this thread was about whether we want employers be policing private lives, social media, etc? You don’t even have to have done anything malicious to be a target.
That is so incredibly untrue. We do have laws that protect against discrimination. But its incumbent on the fired individual to sue and prove that it was done on an illegal basis.
agreed. a company should provide help and support to those facing problems like this, and of course not tolerate it in the office/workplace. however, atrocities people commit in their private life should be dealt with privately. this is a really fine line, though..
Completely agree here. Apple have a responsibility to their staff to provide a structure and set of rules as to what is/is not acceptable in the work place. However, outside of that context, I don’t think it is the employer’s place to impose, nor enforce, those same rules. There are civil/criminal laws and courts for that.
If anyone wants some examples from the past of when this home life rules were defined by your employer, look up Cadbury and Rowntree in the UK, these are examples of when employment and private/religious life and rules completely overlapped.
Alfman, sometimes it is difficult for men to empathize with what we go through as women. There is a sense of guilt and shame that causes many victims to stay silent. At the very least employers should have HR departments capable of providing women (or anyone victimized) with resources on how to report a crime and get necessary counseling.
I don’t consider myself a feminist, I don’t believe this is an epidemic or a systemic issue and I don’t believe anyone accused is automatically guilty or that corporations should be the ultimate judges and executors, but I do believe that they should provide support for the well being of their employees.
“There is no winning move” is probably the best summary.
Looking at the article shared, I think this is the more critical part:
There are too many variables that makes office dating a huge potential for problems. And reading this case, at least the female worker claims it was more for friendship, and the other party had different wants.
The actual events might have progressed in 100 different ways, but regardless the end result is really bad. Especially when they need to share the same office, and potentially work on the same project next Monday morning.
I can see why companies want to avoid to be arbiters. They would either have a blanket policy, and terminate (sometimes both employees), or want to avoid a wrongful termination suit and do nothing at that time.
Can they do better? Possibly they can. There are things like helping out proving they came home together from a social place (Apple Maps history?), or pictures were taken (iCloud), of course with a police warrant. Or arrange internal transfers if proof would not be available (although this is more of a punishment than support). Probably many other ways at least to reduce the pain.
devloop,
I think having some resources is reasonable like you say. It quickly gets complicated when the events are happening outside of work though because employers aren’t equipped to deal with external problems. I have strong reservations about employers having more oversight over our private lives. Crimes should be dealt with by courts.
At the same time I imagine that for victims, going to court can be a traumatic experience in and of itself. I certainly dread the thought. It sucks that there are selfish assholes actively ruining society for everyone else with no remorse. Most of the time they get away with it. I don’t really know what the answer is.
“I don’t want to live on this planet anymore”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j1xzezy8k4
It reads like a boozy episode of Mad Men.
Apple has over 154,000 employees. Now 15 of them (0.01%) have a problem.
These problems might be severe and legit … or not. We don’t know.
Some of the allegations seem to refer to things that happened outside of the workplace and are not work related at all – with no relevance to Apple except that both persons happen to work there.
Apple can not simply believe every accusation ever made.
The employer is not a prosecutor and not a judge and not a jury – that is what the justice system is for.
By responding as poorly as it has, Apple has opened itself up to a good deal of liability, those complaining should be encouraged to sue, I think many of them have good cases.
Remember the whole purpose of HR is to protect the company form these kinds of lawsuits by making sure that is not a hostile work environment and they follow the law in regards to these complaints.
Example #386 of why employers shouldn’t be judges and jury in such matters. Companies don’t care about finding the truth, they care about who is most “important” to the company, so expect them to decide accordingly. Yes that applies even to hip companies like Apple and Google.
Of course, good luck telling that to your average woketard who thinks that the justice system is bad and that hip companies like Google and Apple are their friends, and who also thinks that justice is best delivered extrajudicially via internal courts or mob lynchings (hint: this may work sometimes, but not most of the time).
If you are a victim of harassment at work, go to a real court to find real justice. It may be laborious but it’s the only way.
yeap, real court is a right choice. I think they not calling police just because most of cases happend in head, not in real life. rape means knife near neck, not “he looked at ma boobies”.
Did I understand her right:
She had an affair in 2013.
She complained about it to HR in 2018.
She can not proof her version of the story.
And now she complains about HR not reacting?
My guess would be, that her “briefly falling asleep” involved some bedroom-fun and a lot of alcohol…
If you feel like a victim of a crime, then report it to the police, not the workplace. Companies aren’t judges nor are they executioners.
It’s difficult to even argue that the company should be willing to provide legal councelling, even in Europe it would be, let alone in the US were workers in general have much less rights and privileges.
Actually I totally agree with Apple on the last example, unless the events occurred during a work-related trip. Outside work it’s a private conflict between two people and they have to be able to sort it out on their own, even they happened to be colleagues.
It’s like complaining to the school that two kids were fighting on a Sunday afternoon. Not their problem.
women demanded special treatment – they got it. can anyone just work and not piss on brain?
This is the problem I have with employers policing us outside of work…
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/13/us/flight-attendant-delta-lawsuit-trump-cartoon/index.html
If it doesn’t involve anything she is doing at work, then the employer has no damn business prying into her personal life. Corporations regularly censor their own properties, but it is extremely concerning that this corporation is trying to curtail employee freedom of speech outside of work.
BTW this is the cartoon she posted on facebook…
https://montrealgazette.com/gallery/gallery-aislin-and-other-editorial-cartoonists-september-2020