Somewhere down the line there has been tectonic shift withing the cultural fabric of one of the greatest unicorn amongst all the taxi apps globally. This all started with a blog that was published with one of the former employee at Uber, Susan Fowler. Read the entire story here.  Right after the blog, the traditional as well as the new media picked it up resulting to a public furore against the culture within Uber. This incident further instigated Travis to call for an Independent enquiry within Uber to reinvestigate the matter in order to reinstate the brandimage of Uber amongst its stake holders.

Just after all this was happening and things were getting milder, Uber fired one of the Indian executive Amit Sehgal, stating the fact that Amit was allegedly involved in one of the sexual harassment case in Google which he did not disclose to Uber neither at the time of hiring nor after he took the charge of his role.

Amidst the hunt for a COO and with the lurching arm of operations, the president Jeff Jones and the VP of Maps Brian McClendon has decided to resign from Uber. This news was certainly worrisome as it is easily sense able that something was not right with the way the upper management is seeking exits!  In one of the letters to the employee Uber CEO and Founder Travis Kalanick wrote.

Uber Team,

I wanted to let you know that Jeff Jones has decided to resign from Uber.

Jeff joined Uber in October 2016 from being CMO at retailer Target. In six months, he made an important impact on the company—from his focus on being driver obsessed to delivering our first brand reputation study, which will help set our course in the coming months and year.

After we announced our intention to hire a COO, Jeff came to the tough decision that he doesn’t see his future at Uber. It is unfortunate that this was announced through the press but I thought it was important to send all of you an email before providing comment publicly.

Rachel, Pierre and Mac will continue to lead the Global Ops teams, reporting to me until we have signed a COO. Troy Stevenson, who leads Comps, and Shalin Amin who leads brand design will report to Rachel Holt. Ab Gupta will report to Andrew MacDonald.

Thanks,

Travis

The letter indicates clearly that Travis wanted to portray transparency and win the trust of the employees which would otherwise be hampered, if they would have heard the same news from Press or Media.

Jeff Jones publicly wrote an email to media, as published in Recode:

I joined Uber because of its Mission, and the challenge to build global capabilities that would help the company mature and thrive long-term. It is now clear, however, that the beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber, and I can no longer continue as president of the ride sharing business. There are thousands of amazing people at the company, and I truly wish everyone well.

The McClendon exit as claimed by Uber was amicable and he shall continue to render his services as a consultant to the company in the coming times.

What is the cause of the Disconnect?

We all have been known the way Startups build businesses in a timeframe which is exponentially lesser than the time consumed in other traditional businesses. While the company is seeing newer heights, one the most burning problems which takes away the maximum attention of the Founder and the Management is Operations. On the other hand issues such as Code of Conduct, Employee Engagement and Culture are set to be supported by set of operationally manageable procedure and codes which are scalable but not effective. What’s missing is the Founder’s attention and a Professional Will to keep the Culture intact during tough times, and if at all it demands, also on the cost of organizational growth With the loose ends in the Organization Culture  gradually people who hold some existence due to their rank or quality of work, takes an undue advantage by doing things which are against the cultural values of the organization. Since the priority of the company has been Operations, they ensured that they do not fault on that and rest can be manipulated.

Uber has seen some greatest explosion of growths and is a researchable case study for Startup communities globally, but they really need to have fixed basics before taking the leap in expansions and operations and could have controlled the growing filth which is the major cause of the exits of the top executives who were bonded with a thread of solemn promise of the organization, which was to embrace an adequate environment and culture that is free from bias and respects all gender.

What could be a possible and immediate Fix to this issue?

Let’s understand that something that is built on many years timeframe and massive & abundant inventory of trust, hard work and focus, cannot be achieved instantly! But the sooner you start your journey shall be shorter which in the case of Uber seems to be lost in the wake to become bigger and bigger! Uber should instantly pivot its priorities and put across more attention in reinstating the lost faith of the outside world as well as the employees. They should be transparent and share the causes of the exits and the sexual harassment with people and media. If they do not chances are that media will wrongly interpret the situation and shall bring more harm to the brand value of Uber. So they should start interacting with employees and people around to ensure they are able to bring back the trust which seems to have been impacted in the recent days.

And finally Uber has to Indianize to cater to the needs of Public Safety in India

In one of the recent incidents where a women was ill-treated by the driver which is taking away a lot of trust of women passengers is an outcome of some of the long pending issues which still are unaddressed in the light of expansion, within Uber. On the other hand its competition in India has been playing heavily on such grounds and they are not highlighting the facts, which would otherwise make Uber cognizant of them.

Firstly the sensitivity of the Drivers has to be kept in line with the Company’s. They should be told the limits and should be made aware of the No Tolerance policy which Uber highlighted too as “No Sex Policy”.  Much of the women passengers are unaware of the tools which they have been awarded by the company such as SOS alert on the App, Emergency Button, Emergency Contact Number etc.

A brief peek into Uber vs Other Taxi players statistics globally.

MIS Pasted

E Link: http://www.thestartupmojo.com/uber-india-is-taking-steps-to-implement-its-new-code-of-conduct-no-more-flirting-and-puking-inside-the-cabs/

http://www.thestartupmojo.com/the-growing-menace-in-uber-is-a-threat-to-womens-passenger-safety-in-india/

http://www.thestartupmojo.com/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-ubers-recent-controversy-over-sexual-harassment-at-work/

Keywords: Uber Sexual Harassment, Uber in India, Uber Driver illtreated women in Delhi, Uber exits, DeleteUber, VP of Maps Brian McClendon quits, President Jeff Jones quits, Delhi Uber Women incident, Uber in India, Uber

 

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