In 2018, Leslie Moonves, a former CEO of CBS, was accused of sexual harassment. After the accusations, CBS hired two law firms to investigate the case. The results of the investigation revealed that all the accusations were at least partially true. Moonves confirmed that there was sex; however, he pleaded that it was consensual. The victims, on the other hand, stated that someone from the staff was always on call for Moonves to have sex. The case was lost by Moonves, and he was fired for willful and material misfeasance, violation of company policies and breach of his employment contract without an exit package (Koblin, 2021). Moreover, the company had to pay $14.75 million as a settlement to shareholders, who sued the company for intentionally concealing valuable information from shareholders that affected the share prices and, thus, stockholders’ financial well-being (Goldsmith, 2022). In summary, the ethical case was handled poorly, as the company tried to clear its name through lies and failed to do so.
There were several alternative ways to handle the situation from the viewpoint of HR. I believe that the company’s HR department needed to start a full assessment of workplace culture, as the fact that such behavior was unreported for a long time is a sign of poor workplace culture. After the assessment, a controlled change process needed to be started to change the workplace culture in the company. The process needed to be open so that CBS could regain the trust of shareholders and society in general. A good example of a culture change with high publicity was Volkswagen’s scandal in 2015 concerning emission tests. The company publicly admitted all the flaws of its workplace culture and made environmental sustainability the key point of its strategic development, which helped to regain the trust of the stakeholders (Mansouri, 2016). I believe that CBS would have benefited from treating the ethical issue similar way.
References
Goldsmith, J. (2022). CBS Shareholders’ Suit Over Les Moonves Allegations Settles For $14.75M. Deadline. Web.
Koblin, J. (2021). Leslie Moonves Receives Nothing from CBS Exit Package.New York Times. Web.
Mansouri, N. (2016). A case study of Volkswagen unethical practice in diesel emission test.International Journal of Science and Engineering Applications, 5(4), 211-216. Web.