Indeed has conducted a survey of employees across various companies in the technology sector in India in order to gauge their perception of employers in the wake of public allegations of misconduct, and found that close to 70
Close to 80 percent of respondents said they would be likely to leave their job if a technology-based issue such as data breach, product failure, etc. occurred at the company for which they work. 87 percent of women said they would be likely to leave their job if a gender-based scandal such as sexual harassment, bias in hiring, etc. occurred at the company for which they work, with 82 percent of men in agreement. 75 percent of respondents would be likely to leave their job if issues such as the CEO or senior leaders expressing political views or contributing to policies against their own political beliefs occurred at the company for which they work.
Overall, only a little over 10 percent of respondents said they were less eager to work in the tech industry as a result of public offences such as data breaches, sexual harassment exposures, disingenuous privacy practices, and so on.
Employees with career duration of five years or less were more likely to consider leaving their company following a transgression, with 56 percent of respondents in agreement, in comparison to 46 percent of respondents, who with longer career durations of upto 10 years, were less likely to do so. Further, respondents are similarly inclined to leave the company whether the scandal affects them individually or their larger team or department.
92 percent of respondents said that they would be more likely to stay at their job if their company was quick to respond to a public scandal by fixing errors and communicating internally and externally. 72 percent of respondents said that internal communication within the organization from senior leadership informs their opinion about the reputation of the company and industry they work for. 95 percent of respondents said that if their company was transparent about the issue in question and made attempts to correct it, they would be more likely to stay at their job. Over 80 percent respondents believe that technology companies are ethical, however, close to 90 percent think that technology companies need to be more regulated.
Interestingly, 72 percent of respondents who work in a company with 250-500 employees said their companies were part of a public scandal in 2018, while only 46 percent of respondents who work in a company with more than 500 employees said the same. It would seem that the larger the organisation, the slower the trickling down of news of public misdemeanour.
Mr. Venkata Machavarapu, Head of Engineering, India and Site Director at Indeed India said, “While it is the responsibility of organisations to ensure the integrity and prevent breaches or untoward activities under their purview, no sector is immune to the occasional offence. What is important in such cases is that the company step up and take ownership of their actions and address the issue in a transparent and timely manner, to restore stakeholder trust.”
The study also revealed that close to 60 percent respondents with career duration of 5 years or less would be highly likely to leave their job if a key public figure such as the CEO or other members of the senior leadership left the company for which they work, as compared to 30 percent of respondents with career duration of 11 to 20 years.
Surprisingly, some respondents cited increased interest in working in the sector as a result of these transgressions. Over 60 percent of respondents stated that they would be more interested in applying for a job at a particular company if it had been implicated in any public scandal.
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