Tech employees ready to quit companies with sexual harassment cases: Survey

Employees in the technology sector have made it clear that they will quit companies with sexual harassment cases. A survey by job site Indeed said 87 percent women employees and 82 percent male employees would be ready to quit their job if there were any incidents of sexual harassment or biased hiring at their company.

However, 95 percent respondents would be more likely to stick to the job if their company was transparent about the issue in question and made attempts to correct it.

The survey also found that close to 70 percent considered changing their jobs depending on the nature of the scandal, their loyalty to the firm and how well, or poorly, the employers handled these situations.

Further, 80 percent of respondents said they were more likely to report misbehaviour in the wake of last year’s public offences, with women (85 percent) more likely to do so than men (76 percent).

Unethical practices

Apart from misconduct instances, employees are also not in favour of any unethical practices including hiring bias and data breach.

Close to 80 percent of respondents said they would be likely to leave their job if a technology-based issue such as data breach, product failure occurred at the company for which they work.

Overall, only a little over 10 percent of respondents said they were less eager to work in the tech industry as a result of public offences such as data breaches, sexual harassment exposures, disingenuous privacy practices, and so on.

Employees with career duration of five years or less were more likely (56 percent) to consider leaving their company following a transgression, in comparison to 46 percent of respondents, who with longer career duration of up to 10 years, were less likely to do so.

Interestingly, 72 percent of respondents who work in a company with 250-500 employees said their companies were part of a public scandal in 2018, while only 46 percent of respondents who work in a company with more than 500 employees said the same. It would seem that the larger the organisation, the slower the trickling down of news of public misdemeanour.

Venkata Machavarapu, Head of Engineering, India and Site Director at Indeed India said, "While it is the responsibility of organisations to ensure the integrity and prevent breaches or untoward activities under their purview, no sector is immune to the occasional offence. What is important in such cases is that the company step up and take ownership of their actions and address the issue in a transparent and timely manner, to restore stakeholder trust."

No to opposing political views

With India going into general elections in 2019, another interesting aspect according to the survey was that 75 percent of respondents would likely leave their job if the CEO or senior leaders expressed political views against their own political beliefs.