Thoughts on managers and sub-ordinates, post-Weinstein...

In My Humble Opinion
1

Apologies, this is a bit of a ramble…

As has become evidently and painfully clear recently, for time immemorial some men in positions of authority have abused their status to sexually proposition, abuse and assault those below them in the professional hierarchy. This - for me, at least - is unsettling and vexing: I have line managed people for years, but the thought of using my managerial position to coerce sexual favours out of people has never even crossed my mind. (I mean, seriously, even if I *did *want to - I wouldn’t know where to start. I would be an embarrassingly awkward and inept sexual abuser. I digress…)

I think it’s fair to observe that those - men, especially - who are in positions of authority are under a lot more scrutiny and held to a higher degree of accountability than they used to be, and rightly so. This has led me to re-think what I do and the positions I put myself in with those who work for me. (As a bit of context, I employ young people seasonally over each summer - I am a 37 year-old man who employs and works with dozens of late-teen/early-twenties young adults. Potential creepiness factor: 90-95%).

So the two questions that I have been asking myself are…

  1. How can I minimise the chance that someone who works for me is in any way concerned that I am about to get weird on them?
  2. How can I protect myself from false allegations?

The answer to both questions is one that I am already intimately familiar with (as we work with children - and this is already a maxim for working with them):

Don’t ever be alone in an enclosed space with them

A 19-year old, so goes the logic, would be more comfortable being in a room with my middle-aged ass if she knew that the door was open - and I would be comfortable knowing that she couldn’t make believable accusations against me if I always had an open-door policy. Neither one of us can attack the other, to put it bluntly.

This is elegantly simple, but complicated to enact. Sometimes I need to have my office door closed;if someone pops in to ask something, do I laboriously wedge the door open each time (or request that they do it)? Do I explicitly say ‘Hey, Hannah, do me a favour and keep the door open so that you know I’m not going to try and rape you - and so that I am reassured that you are not going to falsely accuse me of doing so?’ That could get awkward quickly.

This summer, I spent half a Sunday afternoon driving around town with a young, female employee while we looked for a mini-fridge for her to keep her insulin in (these jobs are residential on-site - so this was very necessary). On another occasion I had to do an appraisal with a 20-year old which involved some delicate and embarrassing discussions - so it was just she and I in the room with the door closed. Thinking what I’m thinking now, I wouldn’t do either of those things again. But what would be the alternative?

‘Let’s find a shop that sells mini-fridges for your insulin, so…y’know…you don’t die. Hang on, though - I’ll find someone else to come along with us lest you think I’m going to start touching you up in the car…’

‘It’s time for our end of fixed-term appraisal, where we talk about that time that the child almost killed himself and I shouted at you and made you cry. This is Dave and Alice, they’ll be joining us…’

I shared these thoughts with a friend who is an employment lawyer, who said (I paraphrase…)

“As a manager, you would be mad to be one-on-one with an employee behind closed doors. Never, ever do it.”

There is something about all of this which is profoundly saddening. All of a sudden, I and those who work for me have become potential enemies, who do not share enough mutual trust to (literally) be in the same room as one another. To make things worse, I am tasked with communicating this to my other middle-managers who now share the same burden I do.

What is it like where you are?
Do you have similar dilemmas as me (either as an employee or employer)?
What is your appraisal of my situation?

Cheers :slight_smile:

2

The Times had a big article about this very concern, and one of the points is that you have to balance the concern about the appearance of impropriety with the concern that if you only have 1-1 discussions with men women will be locked out of the kind of mentoring relationship important for career advancement.
One direct solution is glass walls or doors. My last office had a glass door with stripes - you could see through it well enough, when closed, so that anyone would feel safe. Conference rooms were similar - in fact if sensitive discussions were going on (like budget or salary) you’d have to hang paper over the door and wall to block the view.

Being very careful to not be creepy works also.

BTW, Weinstein mostly did not hit on direct reports - except for the receptionist, as far as we know. The problem long predates him.

3

The answer isn’t to behave like you’ve joined the Taliban and therefore cannot be alone with women. The answer is to treat employees with professionalism and respect.

And if you have concern about a crazy employee leveling charges against you for made-up things, then just handle your HR matters in a professional way. If someone is a lousy employee, document their misdeeds in coordination with the proper procedures and managers in your workplace, and do your best to correct their performance. If the employee then fabricates some charge against you as retribution for something, you have a mountain of evidence on your side of the story.

4

I’m not sure I’d know how to be creepy if I tried. I’m playing the scenario through in my mind now…

Employee: ‘Hey MrLee, would you mind signing this expenses form?’

Me: ‘That depends, do you mind showing me your bra?’
or
‘Let’s just say, I’ll do you a favour if you do one for me…’ [raises eyebrows]
or
‘When should I date this? For today, or the day you lost your virginity? When was that, by the way’
or
‘The width of this sheet of paper is about 7.5 inches. Speaking of which…’
or
‘This expenses form reminds me of underwear. Are you wearing any?’
or - usually how it goes down…
‘Sure - you stapled the receipts this time, right?’

My point is that it doesn’t feel like me ‘not being creepy’ is enough any more. I am confident that I am not creepy, as I do not possess the skill-set (for want of a better word) to be so. Nonetheless, I have to remove any situation whereby I would even have the opportunity to be a creep. This is both demeaning to us all and logistically awkward.

Sure, but as soon as an allegation is levelled against me I am on the defensive; the burden of proof is on me. In reality, I am not innocent until proven guilty. As soon as someone were to say ‘He groped me’, I’m done.

Yes, I understand that the majority of modern-built offices have this as standard. I work in an old building that doesn’t.

5

It’s unfortunate that the work environment creates a disincentive to hire people who may later make accusations falsely. In your example, all other things being equal you’d be better off not hiring young women. That’s pretty shitty, sexist, and potentially illegal so that isn’t a great option either.

6

Has it ever occurred to all the scared middle-age, middle managers, that a young male employee could just as easily make a sexual harassment accusation? The last really messy (in terms of career derailing scandal and mudslinging by all sides) sexual harassment case that happened at my work site was same sex.

7

I’ve been in public education for 15 years, and we are very, very concerned about these issues. The best advice, and I mean this, is to make sure you don’t have sexual contact with a subordinate. Really. In the vast, vast majority of cases, it’s not a matter of a single, isolated complaint in a he-said/she-said set up. It’s more like hundreds of explicit text messages, or 15 employees all describing the same scenario, or several witnesses who saw various incidences. Offices are not private.

Basically, if someone is going to make up a story about you, they can make up a story and say the door was closed. You can’t 100% protect yourself against this possibility–any more than anyone can 100% protect themselves against the possibility of being sexually assaulted. Be reasonably prudent. Driving around in a car? Fine. Parking on a deserted side road to talk? Bad idea. And I ask kids to go prop the door open all the time. It’s not that awkward: there are lots of reasons to want the door open–mostly, so other people know it’s okay to interrupt.

8

For me people interrupted more with the door closed than open with someone else in my office.

I’d add that not having sexual contact is not enough - it is not doing anything that can lead to the perception that you are interested in sexual contact. Mark Hurd got booted out of HP not because he was successful at having sex with the consultant but because he tried. Though maybe I’m using too strict a definition of sexual contact.

9

I have a 60-hour digital voice recorder in my pocket. It goes on whenever I’m in a meeting.

10

Some long meetings you must have.

11

Are you required to tell the other meeting participants that they’re being recorded?

12

No. I could also leak it.

13

That’s one way for a non-creepy person to suddenly appear creepy; especially if the recordings are not explicitly made out in the open. The first time someone catches a glimpse of the recorder or gets a clue as to what’s going on the word would spread very quickly… “hey, shsssssh… careful what you say when you talk to Isamu, he secretly records everything people say to him… nobody knows what he does with all the recordings but there must be a reason he tries to conceal it.”

14

:rolleyes:
Yes, hiring a woman increases your chances of getting false accusations of harassment. Or you know, actual harassment.

You can never fully know if the person you are hiring might be a false accuser or an abuser. Just as you can never know whether they might one day decide to embezzle the Company, leak sensitive information, start physical altercations or any host of immoral or illegal things.

All you can do is mitigate risk. And in doing so a time will come when further actions will become counter-productive, the level of risks reduced will not offset the hassles.

15

You’ve said you work in an older building with solid office doors. Is there any chance you could get your management to put glass windows in the meeting room or office doors? Or some of them? If meeting with anyone you could use those rooms with the glass windows…

16

This right here. It’s not enough to treat everyone professionally and with respect any more. As a man, you need to go the extra mile to avoid any potential situation where you could be compromised. The hard part is identifying when you may be entering the danger zone. I guess that is why a lot of work places send their employees to harassment avoidance training regularly. Even then, I suspect it’s possible to destroy a man with this allegation, even if later proven to be untrue, and have a stain on you thereafter.

When I had direct reports (and if I have them again), my general rules are: the only place you can touch is on the hand when they reach out to shake hands, eye-to-eye contact only, no comments about appearance (hair, clothing, etc.), and in no way acknowledge anything about them personally unless they have volunteered it (and even then it still may be inappropriate discussion topics). This goes for both genders.

17

Abusers are going to hire women to have more candidates for abuse.
But I think most problems for men occur when there is either a blatant case of many not so blatant ones, or repeated cases.
I managed women for over 20 years and never had a problem, and in fact stopped one situation where a woman who worked for me thought the names of some servers constituted kind of a hostile work environment. It was not blatant, but I could see her point. I got it changed, and the person who did the naming got no blame. Though I bet he was pissed at me.
I never touched or commented on appearances either.

18

If what you are worried about is /false/ accusations, this isn’t perfect. /false/ accusations can be made by the chaperone. And like any /false/ accusation, can be based on exagerated misunderstanding and dislike, rather than deliberate falsehood. (This is not unknown in medicine, where there are plenty of opportunities for alternate interpretations of events).

19

I’ve already answered that I am not, but by the way, are you required to do so?

I’ve thought about all the angles and even if recording someone without their knowledge was somehow against the law, or made that information inadmissable in court, I’d still do it. The benefits outweight the losses.

20

It depends on your state. Some states are 1 party consent (what you are doing) and others are 2 party consent. If your state requires 2 party consent it could be a crime if there exists an expectation of privacy.