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ENGAGE TREND REPORT 08.27.10
Mad Men, Mark Hurd, Harassment
Don Draper forgot his keys. The same week, H-P CEO Mark Hurd resigned on the heels of harassment charges.
Have attitudes and life style changed - or just the ramifications of getting caught? Technology and societal attitudes are driving new thoughts about what constitutes harassment and new approaches to making sure ethical behavior is enforced in the workplace.
In Mad Men,the ad men drink at work and cavort with their secretaries. Women are disrespected. These were the days of openly coercive sexual exploits at work and racial discrimination. That was part of American culture and those days are not so long ago.
The Atlantic points out that Mad Men bombards us with how bad it was back then while allowing some viewers to gloss over the aspects that are still with us in the workplace and beyond:
To people who actually lived through the 1960s, the sexism of their culture didn't seem dramatic; the men who objectified and infantilized women probably bore no specific malice, and the vast majority of the women who found their lives constrained by those men did not imagine that things could be different. Their oppression was invisible, because it was normal. In other words, they were like us. Sexism is still around, and in the vast majority of instances it doesn't present itself as some portentous, shocking occurrence. It's just the fabric of daily life, a little ugliness that we take for granted.
Calling out that ugliness, piece by piece, and separating it from what we consider standard operating behavior is the first step.
These days, harassment is usually not about the stuff you see on Mad Men, and it's not chasing the secretary around the desk.
Much of the problem is that newer technology - e-mail, IM, texting or posting on social-networking sites - makes it much easier for comments to be misconstrued on many levels. If you admire an employee's new haircut while she is in your office, she can read your tone and body language; and you can read hers. However, a late-night text message admiring your employee's new haircut can take on a lascivious tone, even if that is not the intention.
H-P's investigation found that CEO Hurd violated HP's "Standards of Business Conduct". Hurd was entangled in a personal relationshipwith a hired contractor- an affair he tried to obfuscate with some fudged expense reports. We still do not have the full story of his relationship with the actress / reality show contestant / Congressionalstaffer / marketing consultant / real estate executive Jodie Fisher. The 50-year-old Fisher has appeared on a reality TV show, and in a string of movies that place her on the fringe of Hollywood fame. Her acting resume includes such films as "Intimate Obsession" (1992), "Body of Influence 2" (1996), "Sheer Passion" (1998) and a few other movies that might be hard to explain to your spouse if they popped up on the pay-per-view cable bill.
$10 billion in share value evaporated as the news broke. Hurd's contract makes it clear that he is an "at-will" employee who can be terminated at any time. There is nothing to prevent the board from sending Hurd a letter telling him he has been fired and then stopping paymen ton all those severance checks.
Is Hurd accountable? Should he receive his $50 million severance package?
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