The recent sexual harassment case at Uber and the complacent attitude of its HR towards the matter has brought into spotlight the startup culture that ends up ignoring strong people management processes. Mostly, at their own peril!
In a fast-paced world of booming start-ups, increasing market competitiveness and the need to constantly match investor expectations has forced most new age companies to have lean working structures. This has often resulted in prioritizing certain functions of an organization over others. Cost incurring functions like a dedicated HR team or finance teams are usually ranked below teams of working professionals directly contributing to the performance of the company. The rush to get the product market-ready and meet consumer preferences is often heavily prioritized. However, this method of organizational design, pioneered and accepted by most start-ups globally has become a norm in the fast-paced business ecosystem — a culture that demands high returns in relatively shorter periods.
But as is the case with most popular systems in place today, this comes with a cost to the company — one that is not necessarily reflected in the company’s bottom-line performance but rather, in its ability to and maintain ethical standards of working in the long-run. This problem was recently highlighted as one of Silicon Valley’s top performing startup, Uber, that found itself amidst a sexual harassment scandal. This was soon followed with its founder and CEO Travis Kalanick admitting that he required ‘leadership lessons’ following an incident where he was found treating an Uber driver with not the best form of respect.
The ‘devil’ in the details
This story is from the April 2017 edition of People Matters.
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This story is from the April 2017 edition of People Matters.
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