The purpose of #MeToo was to fix workplace culture, not eliminate it
My thoughts on the demise of the CBI and it's implications on workplace culture across the UK
In the last month the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) has been imploring under the heavy weight of serious sexual violence and harassment allegations. It’s, now former, Director, Tony Danker, was unceremoniously sacked, and UK news publications are churning new pieces on the CBI’s demise on a weekly basis, with more former and current employees coming forward with new allegations and corporate members resigning their memberships in a domino pointing towards organisational collapse.
In 2020, amidst the second lockdown, I had the opportunity to join the CBI as a Senior Campaigns Adviser. It was a brief stint, but it coincided with the arrival of Tony Danker as the new Director General. Looking back, I remember my time at the CBI quite vividly because it was the only thing I had going at the time. Having just gone through a breakup and facing the prospect of extended lockdown measures in my London flat, the team meetings at CBI were my sole means of socialising, apart from occasionally bumping into my equally stressed-out flatmate.
I won’t comment on the rape and sexual harassment allegations as I have no experience or knowledge about them. They sound awful and I am very disappointed to read they were not acted upon when they were first brought to the management’s attention- that is inexcusable.
I can and will comment on the culture I *personally* experienced during my time at the CBI and will also use this opportunity to set out my concerns with the unintended consequences of sexual harassment in the workplace being dragged to the sanitising light of public attention. Do not confuse this post with defence of anyone accused of harassment at the CBI. This is a plea to not throw the baby out with the creepy bath water.
The baby I am referring to here is a blossoming workplace culture. When I was working for the CBI I had a 1-1 catch up with my manager every week and social catch ups with the whole department twice a week. I recall senior members of staff reaching out to me to offer mentorship and guidance. During every single catch up with my manager, without fail, he would ask me how I was doing and what support I needed. He was the first manager to give me constructive (read: no mollycoddling) feedback. During the two social catch ups with the whole department everyone would join and we would play a pre-agreed social game (e.g. show us the insides of your fridge, pick your favourite furniture etc.). As a snooty European I normally cannot stand the British love for organised fun, but those sessions served their purpose brilliantly. Everyone would join, including the most senior people in our department- in fact, the Director would chair them and even though he was an otherwise impenetrable guy, would do a good job to pull the corporate mask off for a hot minute. I would laugh so hard during some of those sessions my flatmate would text me to ask if I am actually working or if TikTok had swallowed me again.
The organisation had a lot of the positives of the private sector. People got shit done, systems where in place to make our lives more productive, everyone was professional in emails, notes were taken and circulated, everyone showed up on meetings on time and expected to finish on time too. The high productivity I experienced meant that some people felt over-stretched, particularly during the lockdown when businesses put a lot of pressure on their lobbying groups to get the Government to be more sensible with its business strategy. I can see how that work hard/play hard culture could translate into a toxic tonic for in-person work parties.
When Tony Danker joined I recall him messaging me out of the blue on Microsoft Teams to ask how things where going. We had a light hearted chat. I was impressed by his social skill and willigness to devote time to fostering relationships with more junior staff. I did not feel there was anything untoward about this, indeed I am reading now that he messaged more than 200 staff members on Teams. I was in meetings with him at the time and would prepare briefings for him, but my job did not involve any 1-1 time with him. I recall discussing with the rest of the team the random things he would message them about too, mostly jokes and commentary.
I thought that was a great move on the part of a new leader. I had never had that experience where the most senior person in an organisation directly opens a private line of communication with staff up and down the organisation. I recall thinking if I ever find myself in such a position, I will do the same. In the organisations I went on to work later I missed that kind of openness from the senior leadership. Junior staff are usually ignored and senior leaders do not see it as a priority to engage them.
Before what was to be the first Christmas I would spend alone and away from family the CBI put up an online karaoke party for all of us. They hired a DJ and sent care packages to all members of staff. During the two hour long karaoke session staff from the top to bottom of the organisation (Tony included) put on their cameras and sung at the top of their lungs (okay, maybe I was the only one screaming), throwing shapes alone in our living rooms and bedrooms but with hundreds of others on our Microsoft teams screens. I cried from laughter. I received multiple teams messages from people I never worked directly with who commented on my enthusiastic performance. I did the same. I missed my family and friends that Christmas but the CBI took it upon itself to ensure I wasn’t alone.
A lot of what I experienced (which by no means invalidates what other people experienced) was a healthy, aspirational even, workplace culture. I have cited my experience at the CBI in a lot of the organisations I moved on to work for. I have tried to replicate a lot of the ways of working I picked up there.
My biggest fear reading about the CBI’s demise is this…
Up and down this safetyism obsessed country there are neurotic individuals tapping their pens, stiffening their lips and preparing their ‘I told you so’s before they march into their next Equality and Diversity meeting to vote on sanitising whatever sign of human culture is left in our workplace. This includes but is not limited to: random, non-work related communication from senior members of staff, any behaviour that is meant to or can be interpreted as flirting with a colleague, communication with colleagues outside of working hours and/or on matters not related to work, private meetings between junior and senior staff of the opposite sex who don’t have a management relationship or who don’t work directly with each other, other grey area behaviours that fall within the normal, healthy range of human social behaviour and which most people who do not live on twitter will fail to identify as problematic or dangerous.
Context for each of these behaviours is important. What’s wrong with banning flirting with colleagues, I hear you ask? If it is not consensual (and it would be hard to know when it is or isn’t), then is up to us all to eliminate it particularly across hierarchies.
The problem with blanket banning flirting is that for some of you the bar for what constitutes flirting is very low. The UK is very multicultural and that complicates things further. Additionally, most of us spend most of our lives at work, and a big part of our socialising is done with people we work with in some capacity. Post university our opportunities to meet new people are limited. Personally I would like to find a partner and last time I managed to get one it was through flirting with them first. Your colleagues are also most likely to be people you have at least some common interests and lifestyle habits. That makes them very good romantic candidates.
Do I think workplace sexual harassment is a problem in the UK that needs addressing? I do and have experienced its debilitating effects. I worked in Parliament for three years and during my time there I had MPs and Peers my grandad’s age hit on me in ways I found deeply uncomfortable. The deepest disappointment, however, was not that old men (I will define them as men over the age of 50 for the purposes of comparison to myself, now being in my late 20s) were deluded enough to think I would sleep with them or the temporary fear and disgust I felt while their failed courtship took place. Being a young woman and experiencing fear and disgust when an older man tries to seduce you is an almost universal female experience and that softens the blow slightly i.e. you did nothing wrong, it is not just you.
The real heartbreak for me was the realisation that the same mentorship that is available to my male counterparts is not available to me. These men did not think I was smart and capable and going places. They thought I was sexually attractive, and that is a tragedy I had to come to terms with. Sebastian or Patrick has a pint with an MP? They just gained a contact. I have a pint with an MP? Maybe I gained a contact, or maybe I gained another simp, who knows, man’s soul is an abyss.
There were cases when these men crossed the line, for example when a Peer set up a meeting with me with the excuse of organising an event, only to proposition me the moment we were alone. That left me shaking and ashamed, my plans for the event unceremoniously scrapped and my participation in that particular APPG withdrawn indefinetely.
There were other times, however, when the old lads did nothing wrong, or at the very least, nothing illegal. I am going to say something shocking out loud but I know a very very small number of young women who fancy older men, particularly those in positions of power. I am not one of them one bit, but they exist. Indeed I even know young female staffers who slept and got into relationships with MPs- with enthusiastic consent, I reassure you. I cannot stress this enough, these women are RARE. But, I can see how a man in the autumn of his life would go mad at the thought that he could for one last time taste the sweet sweet exhilaration of punching above his weight with a much younger woman. I do not respect that sentiment, regardless of wether it is natural for men to feel like that. But I don’t think these men belong in prison for it, if enthusiastic consent is present and there is no duress. From the women’s side as well, I have no plans to shame young women who fancy sleeping or dating or getting married to older men, as much as I think it contributes to men being more prone to ill judged behaviour or culture norms (i.e. men not settling for women their age because they think they can do ‘better’) and as much as I myself do not want to do the same. Live and let live etc.
I want to make a note here on alcohol and drug use in work related socialising. One of the details that made it into the media reports was the use of class A drugs among staff members. This is not a CBI specific problem. This is a London problem. Alcohol abuse is also not a CBI problem. It is a British problem. In other countries, such as my native Greece, puking during a night out is a shameful result of poor self-control. The next day you are expected to call your friends and apologise for ruining their night out. In the UK when you make yourself sick from downing six pints without eating dinner your friends are expected to high five you for being a good sport. That’s a topic to explore in another post, but I am very keen on more light being shed on the UK’s laissez-faire attitude to alcohol and drug addiction which is swiped under the carpet by its media class because they too are suffering and blind to it.
It will be a shame if women (and men) coming forward with their stories of abuse means the healthy parts of workplace culture are replaced with a sanitised HR paradise where no one ever toes the line of the personal and the professional. We mostly don’t want our colleagues to be our close friends but being friendly with our colleagues certainly helps with wellbeing at work. I still crave mentorship from senior figures and that cannot always come from women.
Bar instances where intentions were made clear I cannot look into the souls of all the men who have networked with me, emailed me using a work excuse, offered me mentorship, advice or encouragement, and tell you hand on heart they were genuine trying to help and had no secondary sexual motives whatsoever.
Perhaps I don’t want to know either. It would be a kick in the teeth for me to have to second guess my self every time I talk to men for work. I’d rather not know. Better yet, I’d like to think that if someone is being nice to me it is not just because of some arbitrary stroke of luck that made me female, young (for now) and good looking, but it is because I have worked on my personality to make it attractive and worked on my craft to inspire people to help me. I would rather believe there is still honour and good will in our society and people want to help out others for reasons beyond sexual gratification. I also want to retain the right to decide for myself when communication for men who are older or more powerful/senior in my professional circles is ill willed or not. If anything, I always thought it was a good training experience to learn first hand that powerful men are still human and still fully capable of embarrassing themselves. That is an important lesson for young women and one I have certainly benefited from.
While I hope justice is being served at the CBI I also hope its good workplace practices are not trashed along with its rotten apples. If its former Director General is found guilty of sexual harassment then he deserves some public shunning. Centuries of undisclosed workplace sexual harassment has taught us that for some men only that will deter them. But I also hope other leaders, if they don’t belong in that category of men, the small percentage hellbend on prioritising their sexual urges over women’s wellbeing and comfort, will not look at this example and decide that privately interacting with young women is too dangerous. Your mentorship is needed, be a good feminist and offer it to women too.
It happens over here too.
https://theconversation.com/the-news-about-toronto-mayor-john-torys-affair-destroyed-his-carefully-cultivated-public-image-200425