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zoomzippity | 8 years ago
After five months of examining the company's culture,
Uber's new human resources officer, Liane Hornsey
concluded that the firm's treatment of women was no
worse than what occurs at other companies.
Uber's biggest employee problems are pay and pride, not
sexism, says HR boss “Wherever I have worked, I have
seen things that are not great for women,” Hornsey said
in a USA TODAY interview. “I don’t think it’s about tech,
or this city or this company. I think it’s about the
world of work, and I think that it’s something that we
have to take really super seriously.”
Liane Hornsey was formerly the VP of People Operations at Google for like 5 years I think. I'm far more inclined to believe her account of what things are like than any journalist lazily trolling for any disgruntled former employee to recount a story that will generate ad impressions.
Does Uber have a problem with women in particular because there is something special about Uber or does it have "a problem with women in particular" because it's a tech company and the media established a narrative with momentum that it is somehow worse than other companies in this respect. If Facebook or Github had been founded in 2009, they'd be the scapegoat for what is an industry-wide problem.
Thinking this is specific to Uber and that Uber is somehow worse, just leaves all other companies with an unexamined culture. Worse yet, it leads other companies to think "Our culture is fine because at least we're not Uber" when they probably have all the same problems.
ceejayoz|8 years ago
Her job is to represent and protect the company. HR isn't there to give blunt, honest truth to journalists. They're there to say "everything's fine, no need to sue".