I once reported something that my boss said to the heads of the company. They sent HR in to take care of it instead. My boss said, "I could get fired for what you said I did." He didn't deny it, just that I could cause him to get fired. I said, "Yeah!" or something similar.
The company's response? I was to talk to my boss first next time before going above his head. For something he did that was (I think) illegal, and clearly not okay. I assume that was so he could sweep it under the rug.
That year, I didn't get a raise, when I normally got rather large raises. I went somewhere else 6 months later and immediately earned 40% more.
I'm not at all surprised that 75% say they faced retaliation.
I worked at a place where the person in charge of hiring for that department passed on a great candidate that was black, not because he didn't like black people IMO, but because he said "if were wrong about him being great, black people are way too hard to fire". That was the only openly crazy racist statement I've really ever heard in a corporate environment.
I have watched HR videos while employed at every tech company I have worked at that would insist that retaliation is forbidden and it's ok to report wrongdoing.
Let's say, for example, I wanted to report something along the lines of: <person_with_specific attribute> becoming a manager, then every one on the team slowly being replaced with <person_with_specific attribute> at <large_well_known_tech_company>. I'm not convinced this is possible without retaliation.
I would love to see a survey with one question asked at all tech companies with more then 100 employees. "Promotions are based on merit, answer from 0 to 10."
It's so bad, sometimes you face pre-emptive retaliation if you have a habit of speaking up lol. HR says that to avoid lawsuits. If you bring retaliation and bullying to HR, you will be fired but not right away so it won't look like retaliation but maybe after significant time has passed.
The best place you can be in corporate america is unseen by middle management and have a good immediate boss who values you.
It still baffles me to think that some still believe that HR is on their side. Human resource is there to safeguard the company from regulatory, compliance, and legal challenges.
>I would love to see a survey with one question asked at all tech companies with more then 100 employees. "Promotions are based on merit, answer from 0 to 10."
I work in company which had huge freezings and promotions almost fully paused during last 1.5 year. The only promoted ppl that I worked close enough to evaluate them were really, really good.
> I'm not convinced this is possible without retaliation.
This is true! Unfortunately nobody who investigates this stuff has any sense of discretion, so the subject gets tipped off during the questioning itself.
This isn't even limited to HR/corporate anything, I've had this happen with fucking CPS of all things. They didn't even try to be indirect and outright questioned the alleged perpetrator using the exact verbiage from my supposedly-anonymous report-- events of which only I was a witness to. My working relationship with the subject was great from there.
Right now I'm mulling over what to do with a report from HR personnel about one of their own, involving a [female] employee reporting their known-autistic, high-achieving [female] boss for actual espionage. Our workplace harassment policy says to report everything, even if it's hearsay. As with social media abuse claims, there is no consequence for false reporting or claims made in bad faith, so now I'm spinning wheels on this. I can't tell if it's a disgruntled employee, or the named exec trying to stage a persecution complex.
Whether or not she actually did it, based on the specificity of the claims, if I question the subject, she'll know who reported her. If she did do what's alleged, I can't prove it and she certainly wouldn't admit it, so the only possible outcome my intervention facilitates is opening the door for retaliation either way. I don't want to be the arbiter of HR's internal workplace politics, but who am I going to report false/bad-faith claims to? HR? (Legal won't hear anything without evidence.)
These decisions aren't easy. The workplace "rules" are so incoherent they're easily exploited. I'm taking the workplace harassment training right now; reportable offenses apparently include gossip about someone's hairstyle. Apparently nobody has ever played the game of crybullying before...
If it's not worth risking your entire career for, it's not worth reporting. Unethical business practices? Grow up. Fraud? There's probably a hotline for that. Sexual assault? Call the police. If you don't want retaliation from the company, don't fucking involve the company.
In-group preferences. Granted, there are non-discriminatory explanations: say your manager just happens to know a lot of potential referrals that are of the same identity group. This is totally plausible, most people do indeed tend to have more social connections with people sharing identity characteristics. It's hard to know for sure if favoritism is happening.
The way to tell would be to send effectively identical resumes differing only in the identity characteristics of the applicant and observing if there are disparities. Of course, most companies aren't interested in doing this: why would a company want to incriminate itself?
I know a girl at a Fortune 500 company (not a dev) who was in corporate sales. She went with a more experienced sales person (a guy) who took her and the client to Hooters. No joke. This is like 2019 so in full swing Me Too movement.
When she reported it she was immediately put on a PIP for bad performance. Then she was really dressed down privately by her boss for bringing it up. She taped the convo (legal in her state).
Even presented with that evidence they fired her. They went to the EEOC to protest. The EEOC said that there's almost nothing you can do. So, regardless she hired a lawyer. It wasn't the money it was the fact she was fired despite reporting this (and having good sales numbers).
She spent 2k out of pocket. They said "No we aren't gonna settle". Finally they offered to pay her lawyers fees. She said no and that she was going to finance a movie (low budget but who cares) of what happened to her and form a support group. And talk with ProPublica about the company.
Over 3 hours they negotiated until they gave her a bit under half a million.
The only way to really get justice is just to do things like that I guess. Reporting it has the opposite effect. Eventually many of the other guys involved were let go.
Glad she got something for that awful treatment. But the thing is, this sort of thing doesn't really scale. A lot of (most?) people don't have the time/resources to attempt any of this and are too afraid to have a future job call the previous job and hear negative feedback because of the retaliation, thus hindering future employment prospects. The whole thing is extremely against the employee.
And the companies know this. That 1 person a year that has the balls to retaliate and who the company has to eventually settle with is effectively just a cost of doing business, and so nothing changes.
I once worked for a crypto startup that turned out to build a ponzi scheme. I of course quit, and asked for my due money from paychecks not paid yet. No money to be seen. I reported the startup to the police, but the police didn't seem all too interested for doing anything about it. I then threatened the startup with going to the local business news outlet and reporting my story, to which they finally responded with and gave my missing money, but the thing is - I had talked to the business outlet, and they also didn't care about the story. I was bluffing and just got lucky. And as far as I know they continued with their business just fine.
It definitely doesn't scale. And if this is before Me Too then she doesn't get anything either. But, idk what else you can do. I'm glad she got some good money out of it but as you said for most people it's not possible.
Most people who even have the money don't want to risk it, they just move on.
The problem is the lawsuit payday only works once. Regardless about how horrible an employer is, it marks someone as perpetually radioactive from being hired anywhere else.
Part of their deal entailed the company would not say anything negative to any company looking to hire here in the future.
Even if you file a lawsuit against a company they aren't going to generally say "Well, they filed a lawsuit against us". They generally don't say anything disparaging unless you are dealing with a mom and pop type of company.
More accurate headline would be "75% of Software Engineers Who Reported Wrongdoing Claim They Faced Retaliation". I know there are some obvious cases where people were explicitly retaliated against, but I'm also not sure you can just automatically trust someone when they say they didn't get that raise they obviously deserved due to retaliation.
Also, I stared at this sentence for a long time trying to figure it out: "Meanwhile, the Horizon IT Inquiry continues to investigate how faulty accounting software has been blamed for multiple suicides and what has been described as “the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history”, with those wrongly imprisoned including a pregnant woman."
Maybe if I'm British that makes more sense but seems like it was just thrown in there to crank up the drama.
I worked in a big media company and the department next to me had a manager that would get angry and throw stuff on the wall. Once he grabbed the desk IP phone and threw it at the white board, cord and all.
Made some of the employees pretty nervous in weekly meetings. One of them complained to the HR. The employee's contract was not renewed that quarter and nothing ever came of the manager.
It doesn't surprise me 75% of SWEs report retaliation based on my experience in tech, but credit to 100% of people with integrity that spoke truth to power and risked paying the price. The world would be a lot better place (in my humble opinion) if more people spoke up when things were wrong, and were less afraid of losing a job at a company crossing an ethical line they hold. I know that's a luxury opinion, but if you did the right thing and lost something important, that's a company throwing away the best of humanity and a clearly toxic culture.
More great corporate culture would be awesome. But it's very hard for the employee to distinguish between talk and policy versus reality on the ground. So even when the corporate culture and incentives are actually good and clean, it's risky for the employee to speak up.
What might help is more communication of the proportion of complaints or reports that resulted in what. In a "measure it if you want to see it happen" manner. The measure will then be gamed but hopefully that's only a second order effect.
Once, I reported the VP of engineering for instructing me to commit fraud. I got back "Just do what he says, he's got experience in these things.". Then they hired someone to take over my team.
Another time, I reported someone for sexual assault to HR. I shared the incident without names at first and HR told me "oh, that's awful. Who is it? They need to go.". When I shared the name, I got "oh. Well, they are too important to the company. I'll talk to them."
If you're working at a French company or in France, you can knock at any union's door and report retaliation. They will give you advice, access to a psychologist and legal council (and representation if you want to go further)
Oh yeah, the worst thing you can do is speak up at work. Especially if any of the higher-ups are assholes up to no good. That's why recruiters value long-term stays at a job because it shows that you either have too much to lose or are too much of a coward to stand up for yourself.
Internal recruiters might value that, but third-party recruiters don't. The more people jump around between companies, the more money they make in commissions.
Readit News
The company's response? I was to talk to my boss first next time before going above his head. For something he did that was (I think) illegal, and clearly not okay. I assume that was so he could sweep it under the rug.
That year, I didn't get a raise, when I normally got rather large raises. I went somewhere else 6 months later and immediately earned 40% more.
I'm not at all surprised that 75% say they faced retaliation.
Was that exactly what HR said? Who knows. But it affected that hiring round.
Let's say, for example, I wanted to report something along the lines of: <person_with_specific attribute> becoming a manager, then every one on the team slowly being replaced with <person_with_specific attribute> at <large_well_known_tech_company>. I'm not convinced this is possible without retaliation.
I would love to see a survey with one question asked at all tech companies with more then 100 employees. "Promotions are based on merit, answer from 0 to 10."
The best place you can be in corporate america is unseen by middle management and have a good immediate boss who values you.
I work in company which had huge freezings and promotions almost fully paused during last 1.5 year. The only promoted ppl that I worked close enough to evaluate them were really, really good.
This is true! Unfortunately nobody who investigates this stuff has any sense of discretion, so the subject gets tipped off during the questioning itself.
This isn't even limited to HR/corporate anything, I've had this happen with fucking CPS of all things. They didn't even try to be indirect and outright questioned the alleged perpetrator using the exact verbiage from my supposedly-anonymous report-- events of which only I was a witness to. My working relationship with the subject was great from there.
Right now I'm mulling over what to do with a report from HR personnel about one of their own, involving a [female] employee reporting their known-autistic, high-achieving [female] boss for actual espionage. Our workplace harassment policy says to report everything, even if it's hearsay. As with social media abuse claims, there is no consequence for false reporting or claims made in bad faith, so now I'm spinning wheels on this. I can't tell if it's a disgruntled employee, or the named exec trying to stage a persecution complex.
Whether or not she actually did it, based on the specificity of the claims, if I question the subject, she'll know who reported her. If she did do what's alleged, I can't prove it and she certainly wouldn't admit it, so the only possible outcome my intervention facilitates is opening the door for retaliation either way. I don't want to be the arbiter of HR's internal workplace politics, but who am I going to report false/bad-faith claims to? HR? (Legal won't hear anything without evidence.)
These decisions aren't easy. The workplace "rules" are so incoherent they're easily exploited. I'm taking the workplace harassment training right now; reportable offenses apparently include gossip about someone's hairstyle. Apparently nobody has ever played the game of crybullying before...
If it's not worth risking your entire career for, it's not worth reporting. Unethical business practices? Grow up. Fraud? There's probably a hotline for that. Sexual assault? Call the police. If you don't want retaliation from the company, don't fucking involve the company.
Because those are very important distinctions for formal complaints.
I've heard about it already
The way to tell would be to send effectively identical resumes differing only in the identity characteristics of the applicant and observing if there are disparities. Of course, most companies aren't interested in doing this: why would a company want to incriminate itself?
Dead Comment
When she reported it she was immediately put on a PIP for bad performance. Then she was really dressed down privately by her boss for bringing it up. She taped the convo (legal in her state).
Even presented with that evidence they fired her. They went to the EEOC to protest. The EEOC said that there's almost nothing you can do. So, regardless she hired a lawyer. It wasn't the money it was the fact she was fired despite reporting this (and having good sales numbers).
She spent 2k out of pocket. They said "No we aren't gonna settle". Finally they offered to pay her lawyers fees. She said no and that she was going to finance a movie (low budget but who cares) of what happened to her and form a support group. And talk with ProPublica about the company.
Over 3 hours they negotiated until they gave her a bit under half a million.
The only way to really get justice is just to do things like that I guess. Reporting it has the opposite effect. Eventually many of the other guys involved were let go.
And the companies know this. That 1 person a year that has the balls to retaliate and who the company has to eventually settle with is effectively just a cost of doing business, and so nothing changes.
I once worked for a crypto startup that turned out to build a ponzi scheme. I of course quit, and asked for my due money from paychecks not paid yet. No money to be seen. I reported the startup to the police, but the police didn't seem all too interested for doing anything about it. I then threatened the startup with going to the local business news outlet and reporting my story, to which they finally responded with and gave my missing money, but the thing is - I had talked to the business outlet, and they also didn't care about the story. I was bluffing and just got lucky. And as far as I know they continued with their business just fine.
Most people who even have the money don't want to risk it, they just move on.
Part of their deal entailed the company would not say anything negative to any company looking to hire here in the future.
Even if you file a lawsuit against a company they aren't going to generally say "Well, they filed a lawsuit against us". They generally don't say anything disparaging unless you are dealing with a mom and pop type of company.
Also, I stared at this sentence for a long time trying to figure it out: "Meanwhile, the Horizon IT Inquiry continues to investigate how faulty accounting software has been blamed for multiple suicides and what has been described as “the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history”, with those wrongly imprisoned including a pregnant woman."
Maybe if I'm British that makes more sense but seems like it was just thrown in there to crank up the drama.
Made some of the employees pretty nervous in weekly meetings. One of them complained to the HR. The employee's contract was not renewed that quarter and nothing ever came of the manager.
What might help is more communication of the proportion of complaints or reports that resulted in what. In a "measure it if you want to see it happen" manner. The measure will then be gamed but hopefully that's only a second order effect.
Once, I reported the VP of engineering for instructing me to commit fraud. I got back "Just do what he says, he's got experience in these things.". Then they hired someone to take over my team.
Another time, I reported someone for sexual assault to HR. I shared the incident without names at first and HR told me "oh, that's awful. Who is it? They need to go.". When I shared the name, I got "oh. Well, they are too important to the company. I'll talk to them."
I put in my resignation shortly after that.
I won't work for people like that anymore.
I'd probably go directly to the police about something like that.