McDonalds have sacked their CEO after a consensual affair with a colleague:
www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/03/mcdonalds-chief-executive-steve-easterbrook-relationship-employee
Against company rules to get involved with a more junior colleague. He's admitted it so I guess it's a fair cop.
Fair rule?
FWIW I'd say yes it's absolutely fair.
|
|
Silly burger - £13m year - I am sure he never thought fully about the consequences
|
On some level I think it's a bit ott in this day and age, I don't really see any issues if there is no abuse of power etc then let them crack on.
At our place if you're not directly reporting/ their line manager or similar and not married then it's not really of any interest to the bosses. Married couples aren't allowed to be working directly together. However affairs involving married persons still very much frowned on. They'll be moved on very rapidly. Example last year, one divorcee having an affair with a married woman. Husband found out, complained, the divorcee (who was single ) moved on in 24 hours. Awkwardly all three worked in the same location.
I'm surprised some hasn't gone to court over this thing before, particularly when there's no third party involved, scandal, all adults etc.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Mon 4 Nov 19 at 15:39
|
Some reports are suggesting there are issues lower down the foodchain at restaurant sites in US where power has been abused and that ban on relationships was a response to that. Talk of #metoo and #survivor groups.
Precarious work, zero hour contracts and law in at least some States that has little if any employee protection it's not difficult to see 'bad apples' taking advantage.
I guess in those circs if the guy at the top get's caught then an example has to be made.
|
I can see both sides. You are entitled to a private family life and if there is a consensual relationship where there is no direct operational relationship, why sack him. But, even before the MeToo campaign, opportunities for abuse existed.
The odd thing is that so many marriages started off as relationships at work.
And the question is; does he still have that relationship now he has been sacked?
|
|
If he was deemed essential or key to McDonalds future performance he would still be in a job.
|
>>If he was deemed essential or key to McDonalds future performance he would still be in a job.
Most unlikely. They couldn't afford the liability.
|
>>Fair rule?
Not only fair, but essential.
Typically the most generous rule is that a relationship between two people in the same financial authorisation line is not permitted (to avoid collusion in fraud) and in the same management reporting line (to avoid favouritism, mistreatment) and in both cases to avoid the more likely outcome of being accused of those things.
|
In most cases, one or other of the individuals could be moved out of the same line of management, it's a bit difficult when one is the CEO.
Suspect there is more to the story when the CEO is the one who has been forced out. Either way, they didn't think is could remain a secret with no consequences did they?
Not in any organisation I have ever worked with.
|
I could, but won't tell you three major UK corporations where exactly that has happened in the last 10 years.
It's quite beyond me how such people can make such misjudgements.
Int his case I do wonder if a law suit was flying around that they were worried the CEO might get pulled into. Sounds like an HR person somewhere sent up some warning flags.
|
>> It's quite beyond me how such people can make such misjudgements.
There is an organisation in Westminster, with about 600 senior managers, all of whom are under extreme press intrusion and scrutiny, where they do it with monotonous regularity
|
>> Not in any organisation I have ever worked with.
I can tell you of three occasions in an organisation where it happened, and as you dont know about it clearly it has.
I am sure you know of the two additional occasions that came to light.
|
It seems the share price has benefited enormously since he's been CEO. In that position he then cannot enter a relationship with anyone in the company, in the world.
Seems a little restrictive to me.
|
>> Seems a little restrictive to me.
One of many one suffers in such a position. All of which one is compensated for.
But he should have left first and then done the dirty. It's not like he didn't know the rules or hadn't accepted the bargain.
|
|
Old as commerce itself - nothing new.
|
I can see this maybe being needed in big business but surely a line has to be drawn, I bet many people met their partner at work (I did!), the way the social structure has changed means the work place is the probably the most convenient place to meet people and to get to know them.
We have quite a few surgeons and anaesthetists who are husband and wife and work together or are in the same department without any questions.
|
>> We have quite a few surgeons and anaesthetists who are husband and wife and work
>> together or are in the same department without any questions.
>>
The big no no, i think, is in places where there is a direct management line not just a senior / junior sort of relationship
|
>>The big no no, i think, is in places where there is a direct management line not just a senior / junior sort of relationship
From an HR point of view it has to be separate enough that neither can affect the others job, career,performance, salary, reviews etc. etc.
From a Finance point of view it has to be separate enough that neither can benefit from the authority of the other.
From a Legal point of view it has to be separate enough that nobody can allege any wrong doing, or any negative implications, discomfort or impact.
Usually it's just easier to say no.
Remember, no company ever wants to find out, it is absolutely not to their advantage to do so. They just want to show that they took all reasonable steps and couldn't be expected to know.
Hence in this case I expect that somebody did something silly which forced the company to officially know.
|
>> Hence in this case I expect that somebody did something silly which forced the company
>> to officially know.
It would be interesting, purely for background, to know a bit more about what happened in Maccy D's.
|
>> It would be interesting, purely for background, to know a bit more about what happened
>> in Maccy D's.
The difficulty is that even if one did find out, one probably couldn't share. Unless it was in the Daily Mail of course.
But yes, it would be.
|
>> The big no no, i think, is in places where there is a direct management
>> line not just a senior / junior sort of relationship
That was certainly case in Civil Service. Finance regs prohibited any two people in a relationship from being in same authorisation chain and there were analogous provisions re management/reporting lines.
There were loads of couples of varying degrees of endurance in the Deaprtments in which I served from 1978 to 2013 but management ensured they were in different reporting lines.
Affairs, close but platonic relationships and people who pushed colleagues careers in hope of sexual payoff (and those who played along with latter) were another question.
|
>> I can tell you of three occasions in an organisation where it happened, and as
>> you dont know about it clearly it has.
>>
I do know of some where it all came out and as for the others maybe we worked in different clients, it certainly happened in the organisation we both worked for and never ended well in the ones i knew of, although sometimes it took some time.
|
>> for and never ended well in the ones i knew of, although sometimes it took
>> some time.
Still at last one ongoing and has been since my departure. I know they are both there, tho I dont have access to the reporting line to see how that has since panned out. We are talking one VP LoB in country and one now out of country
|
Can be quite common in the private hospitals where the husband is the surgeon and his first assistant is his wife being a theatre nurse.
Of course the most important person is the doctor putting you to sleep and waking you up.. Strangely patients never seem to find that out!
|
So what should a couple do if a new member of staff arrives in a company and discovers a person with whom there is a very strong romantic attachment? The attachment is mutual without coercion.
Do they keep it totally hidden until they announce a wedding? Do they 'come out' to HR and work out an operational methodology that keeps them from affecting the company's performance? How do you stop people falling in love? What happens once they announce they are married?
There is a married couple in my children's school who are both heads of department. She uses her maiden name but given that their two boys also go to the school its all totally open. No one has suffered as a result.
|
>> So what should a couple do if a new member of staff arrives in a
>> company and discovers a person with whom there is a very strong romantic attachment? The
>> attachment is mutual without coercion.
It's all fact and circumstance dependant.
In small organisation, particularly a family business, either everybody rubs along with the situation or if an employee finds it impossible they bale out. If it's really bad or they're pushed then maybe employment lawyers get involved.
Once it's a larger outfit, I guess there's a critical mass for this, then rules, HR/Finance functions and such like are in place and the rules need to cover workplace relationships. Mark's post above provides a summary of why this is necessary to avoid both real malfeasance and to ensure, so far as possible, that any suspicion is stopped too.
In the scenario you mention then I think they have to 'come out' to HR so that any provisions needed for benefit/protection of couple and others are in place.
I think pretty much any large secondary school will have couples on the staff. Sometimes staffroom romances other times they come as a package - there are only so many teaching posts in a given subject within travelling distance of the marital home. Way back when I was at senior school the Head of Art and one of the Science/Maths teachers were a married couple. She took his name but there are good professional reasons, and keeping it from pupils isn't one of them, why female professionals, not just teachers, use their maiden names professionally.
There was a suspicion that a previous head at Comp my kids went to had 'a thing going on' with a member of the SMT whom he appointed. One of the downsides of Academy status is that Heads who want to do that sort of thing are no longer under control of an LEA. Of course governors are supposed to be the back stop but a domineering head can bend them to his way.
|
|
On another forum some wag has dropped the Maccy's 'Loving It' strapline into the debate to describe ex CEO's attitude to colleague and their goings on.
|
|
Sounds to me like he had his hands on the wrong buns.
|
|
gave them the wrong sort of patty
|
|
Or is it his special sauce........
|
|
Its got him in a right old pickle, I bet he still thinks he cuts the mustard tho.
|
|
it's a wonder he didn't get a grilling.
|
|
...he probably flipped when he found he was being fired....
|
|
His career is burgered now though.
|
Did he Go Large I wonder?
(I suspect so.. :-) )
|
|
...I think an event such as this is rare, but well done to the company for sticking to its principles. I bet he's feeling blue, though.....
|
>>but well done to the company for sticking to its principles
Not any chance at all that this was to do with principles.
They felt they had no choice for some reason.
|
|
....and some fell on stony ground..... :-(
|
McDonald's Sacks CEO. - Falkirk Bairn
