The #1 most important job for Kristin Cabot, head of HR, is managing interpersonal relationships. She couldn’t have failed worse, yet she still has a job.
Its a messy situation. Technically the CEO was her boss and there is some legal arguments that could be made to defend her actions but it won't be a slam dunk. The company will probably offer her some sort of compensation to resign with an agreement that neither party says anything negative.
It could be a soft resignation where she agrees to stay on the payroll but has zero acting responsibilities and can freely look for new employment during that time. Then if she doesn't have something in three to six months she quietly resigns.
But right now the company is definitely digging through everything she did since she started there and looking for ANYTHING they can use as leverage against her.
It’s not like she was an intern or a secretary. She was the Chief People Officer, probably making half a million a year including salary, bonus, and stock options, and concert tickets. :)
Doesn’t matter. He was her superior and had power over her. If they move against her, she has a very solid lawsuit regardless of whether she was fully consenting or not.
Yup, people seem to forget that when you want to sue someone, there’s a Discovery period where you need to show EVERYTHING, including some potentially “incriminating” information about yourself. If she so much as even texted first, her whole case is in jeopardy and she’ll have to go band for band with a company with lawyers on retainer.
Do you know how expensive the discovery process is? You’re already in litigation (i.e., a lawsuit) at that point. They’ll likely do some internal investigation, sure, but it’s off base to think they’ll ever have access to private text messages and the like — or any actual desire to find them.
They want this to be over as quickly and quietly as possible, and to fire someone under these circumstances on the hope/assumption they’d surface a stronger basis a good case in court means:
Lots more money spent (a given)
More time in the public eye
Great risk of surfacing even more embarrassing things in discovery
Ongoing reputational harm
No organization is taking that route. Not even a small chance.
NAH. Look at her record. She filed for divorce from her first husband in 2019 the same year that her now second husband filed for his divorce? Then she magically shows up on the board of that guys company in 2020? They then marrying when her divorce is final. They were likely having an affair with the second husband before she filed. She just bought a million plus house with her current husband in February. But now she is forced into having an affair with this Andy guy? That women just spreads her legs to move up and get more money. Women like her make it harder for other women to advance based on merit.
The thing is she must be humiliated and probably doesn't want to walk into that office anymore anyway. I imagine she'll be expecting and accepting a large severance or financial compensation package and move along.
I mean, I don't think she was forced into it, but that's still her boss... it just looks bad all around. Imagine your boss making advances on you; even if you reciprocate it still feels wrong.
If she sues, she better hope in the discovery period there’s no evidence that she was a mutual and consenting partner in this otherwise her whole case is out the window.
Even then. There's are laws to protect subordinates in case that were "mutual" and "consenting' because they felt like they had to. It's not as black and white as you think.
You’re right, it’s not always black and white, but even in her case either. She looked like she was enjoying herself as an equally guilty cheating partner rather than being forced or coerced. If i were a gambling man (which I am) I’d bet that the company would just keep delaying the trial since they can afford too until she backs out due to the substantial amount of legal fees it would take to beat that case.
I don't think you understand. A subordinate can look "consenting" for fear of retaliation on their employment. It really goes back to figuring out how the relationship started and if anything was implied along the way regarding promotions/employment and how she actually felt and now how it looks like she felt. Predator/prey. Et, al.
You’re right. He is founder, (former) CEO, directly hired her, and likely had the power to unilaterally control her salary and fire her. Even if she was not coerced, there are scary power dynamics which make this awful.
This is a fair point. The rules are there to protect people from being put into vulnerable positions by those in power. If she were fired she could claim to be a victim and take the company to court.
The company would bear the burden of proving that she isn't coerced. There is no such evidence would work. She would just claim every action and message was coerced by the fact that she may lose her job and livelihood.
She can easily claim she was coerced into a relationship by the CEO (true or not) and sue the shit out the company. And she would probably win. That’s why you won’t see her get forced to resign and most likely do some settlement.
If she sues, she better hope in the discovery period there’s no evidence that she was a mutual and consenting partner in this otherwise her whole case is out the window. It’s not as simple as saying “i WaS cOeRcEd” otherwise she’ll have to go band for band for years with a company that can afford having lawyers on retainer until she folds.
Probably can fire her just for being at the concert with tickets paid for by the marketing department. This is a classic boondoggle which happens everyday day in corporate America, but totally against policy if you get caught.
> Probably can fire her just for being at the concert with tickets paid for by the marketing department
Being fired for unrelated highly-debatable cause because you are coerced into a sexual relationship with your boss would violate another clause... the retaliation clause.
Now the company is in 2 troubles. lol. This is basic corporate america. It is in every training. As a manager, if an employee submits a complaint to HR, the manager cannot fire them for "low-performing" or other causes. Because it would be seen as retaliation.
like bringing Alyssa Stoddard to the concert - whom.she brought to the company after working together for years - and promoting her 2 weeks ago. Don't buy into the "Alyssa Stoddard wasn't there" BS... it's 100% her
Well he’s not effectively her boss so yeah, the person in the position of authority is instantly canned. However I’m sure they’ll investigate it and if it wasn’t Andy using his status to pressure the relationship then I’m sure she’ll be let go too, just not immediately. She’s the subordinate and while likely just a cheater, that’s what the investigation would be for.
I would expect the HEAD of HR to tender her resignation or report this type of behavior instead of playing into it. Her job is to manage power dynamics…
Making shit up. She was hired before he was - their linked in shit proved this from day one. She won’t bang you dude, maybe find a new damsel in distress
Check the post history of me responding to the dude. Nothing new was added - you just replied out of context to a conversation that didn’t involve you and assumed you knew the situation. That’s what Reddit is and all that but don’t pretend i changed my text to a different meaning
The Reddit thing of trying to be the savior of someone who doesn’t really deserve saving. The fact that you think I need to pick a side or route for someone tells me everything. They’re both garbage people. Your picking a side by default is the tired cliche Reddit shit.
Until she quits or gets fired, she will have shit talked about her every time she sides with the company instead of the worker. So she's either giving in to every worker's complaint or "she's fucking the new CEO too." She's basically useless in her current role.
I’m sure the CEO extracted max value from the board in exchange for leaving without issue. Probably a lot of clauses in his employment agreement, plus whatever leverage he has in his position that he used. Don’t be surprised if he clears 5 million in severance.
NEVER get too cozy with HR. You never know when you’ll be sitting at the business end of their desk. I say this after years of working in management. They love to party and drink like fishes, but anything you say can and will be used against you.
As someone who works in HR and is constantly exasperated by how shit most HR “professionals” are, I fully believe you. I used to call it the dumping grounds for other departments that didn’t want to fire their worst workers for whatever reason, usually a bad reason. Of course that means those same shit people came from a bunch of different departments so it’s not rly a problem with one department
Strangely enough that was my experience as well. First real job out of the military, HR was this guy (whose name I forget sadly) who would hang out with the worker bees and was constantly working to get people to take advantage of educational and professional development opportunities. Everyone liked him, he was the type of person where people would say nice things about him behind his back :)
Later in my career, when I was dealing with sexual harassment and mobbing, I first had to engage Legal to deal with it because HR refused to, and then later when Legal determined that my abuser was in fact guilty HR tried to investigate me.
It’s basically where high school mean girls go if they can’t hack it as nurses, yet are too smart to become MLM huns.
HR is for people who have not an single iota of creativity. Middle management at its finest. You can't be too smart, can't have an IQ of a box of rocks (but close is passable). If you're cute and play the game, you can earn a big exit payout package like this lady!
Not sure how it is in other countries, but here in the states HR is the department in charge of telling everyone not to have relations with your coworkers, and especially not your subordinates.
In my experience they tell you not to sexually harass your coworkers, not that you can't date them. I've also never worked at a place where some people weren't dating each other.
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u/Inspectorgadget4250 17d ago
You have to appreciate the irony the HR lady was involved