How to Handle Bigotry in Annual Report to Shareholders?

Question

I recently discovered a series of bigoted jokes while browsing previous years' annual reports to shareholders. A report from several years ago contained multiple paragraphs making fun of Muslims and members of the LGBTQ community. I was appalled to see that this content was published by my company. Moreover, it was disheartening to see that the report was signed by my company's executives and presented to our shareholders.

I've already anonymously reported the content through an internal system, and the annual report has been taken off the company website. However, I want to be certain that the views expressed in the annual report are not representative of my company or its leaders. To that end, I am planning on scheduling a meeting with several of the executives that signed the annual report, including our CEO.

Is direct confrontation an appropriate choice to address this issue? If so, how should I conduct this meeting? If not, what alternatives are available to me? I want to be a force for positive change within my company, but I recognize that this may adversely affect my career. Please let me know how to proceed.

Edit:

"What is your role in the company? How high in the ladder are you?"

I'm early in my career.

"What makes you think you can schedule and conduct meetings with these people?"

Flat company hierarchy. It would be trivial to ask any of them for 15 minutes at lunch, for example.

"What if they are representative of the views of your company?"

Then so long as I'm an employee and/or a shareholder, I will try to change those views.

"If you are fired, will you have access to these annual reports? Seems like if I was the company, I'd just find some reason to fire you and make the issue go away."

These reports are still publicly available, but the one in question is no longer visible on the company website.

"Does your company have any internal diversity initiatives or committees, or members of staff who have spoken about diversity? It would help your position if it's not just you doing this alone"

No initiatives/committees that I'm aware of, but several other employees have seen the report and agree that more needs to be done. Perhaps establishing such a committee could be a goal of any potential meeting.

"'If not, what alternatives are available to me?' - purchase 1 share of company stock. Attend the annual meeting and speak about it when shareholders are given the microphone."

I'm already a shareholder. How would this differ from scheduling the meeting directly?

"How many is 'several years ago'?"

The annual report was published within the past ten years.

"Is this happening in the USA?"

Yes.

"What are you trying to accomplish here?"

In my original post I said, "I want to be certain that the views expressed in the annual report are not representative of my company or its leaders." However, I believe I worded that sentence poorly. It would be more accurate to say, "I want to make certain that the views expressed in the annual report are not representative of my company or its leaders." I represent my company, and my company represents me. As such, I am trying to change the company culture to better represent myself and my coworkers. This report has damaged the morale of many new employees, and I believe it's in the best interest of the company to address this issue.

More like than not, the OP is a privileged and spoiled white person that has never faced consequences in their life. They are the epitome of privilege in this country.

Thanks for the comment. I've done my best to provide as many details as possible while minimizing the amount of personally identifiable information in this post. Please let me know if there's any more information I can provide that would help you answer my questions.

Answer 1

From the company perspective, up to now, you have been an asset. You have reported something that could have hurt the company and they removed the risk at basically zero cost. Good.

But now, you are crossing the line from being an asset to the company to becoming a burden or liability. You want to incur costs (CEO time is valuable) for zero company gain.

So from the perspective of the company, this is a bad, bad move.

From your perspective... what do you think you can get from such a meeting? The CEO will probably say "yeah that wasn't smart, but HR already told you so, what do you want from me today?" I don't know what you want. Find out whether they are not as woke as you? Probably not. Will they openly identify as racist, islamophobic or anti-LBTQ+? Probably not. So what do you seek in this meeting?

To me (and most likely to your company, too) it sounds like you want a personal apology for doing something "bad". Where I would guess you weren't even effected, if you were muslim or LBTQ+ you would probably have said so.

So what they see is a peon of their empire asking the king for an apology for something "bad" they did years ago that nobody cared about for years until you came along. And even you had no negative consequences, you are asking for an apology on behalf of someone else that is not even asking for it themselves.

Any CEO I know of would do one (or both) of two things:

• Let their secretary tell you nicely but firmly that the king (sorry, "CEO") has no time to speak with peons (sorry, "members of the great ACME corp community we built").
• Set up a meeting with you and in parallel, ask your boss to be prepared to replace you on short notice.

Answer 2

I want to be certain that the views expressed in the annual report are not representative of my company or its leaders.

I think your best choice would be to move to another company, if your values are not aligned with those of the company.

The content you find offensive was already published and signed by the executives. Apparently nobody raised an eyebrow for that, not the shareholders nor the executives. This tells me that there is alignment between the feelings and views of the executives and the feelings and views of the shareholders.

And even after you reported the content, it was taken down without any public apologies.

To me this sounds like either like a "hiding the dust under the carpet" or that the company doesn't care much about the possible damages to its image coming from those statements.

Answer 3

Full disclosure: I fall into several "protected" groups.

In my opinion, this is problematic on several levels.

• It's several years old.
• The behavior stopped.
• You will cause no end of grief to yourself, and to others.
• You will achieve nothing

Some companies frown on public political activism within their company, and you may end up looking very bad. If you are not even in either of those groups, then your raising a stink may be seen as white-knighting.

Frankly, many folks in protected groups are tired of being infantilized by people getting offended on our behalf.

Has there been any active discrimination? Has there been any harassment based on immutable characteristics? Is there anything other than a years old document to get upset about?

If not, let it drop. There are bigger fish to fry.

Answer 4

Is direct confrontation an appropriate choice to address this issue?

That's only a choice that the OP can make. They need to consider whether their values are more important to them than their current position.

You're currently in a position of trust as an employee, the organization has every reason to believe that you are operating in their best interest. The moment you push this, or try to question a senior employee, you will be seen as a external party risking the reputation and brand. If you keep your job, you will likely be under suspicion and may even have your access to systems revoked.

If you take this course you need to consider:

• Are you willing to cut all strings with the organizations and employees?
• Do you have a back-up plan if this has further consequences on your career?
• Is the company popular enough for this to become have media interest where you are the focus of attention?
• How far are you willing to push this?

You will go from being a team member to an activist. The company will be suspicious of you and may believe you have been only acting as a team player all along, ie. are you an investigative journalist or moral crusader. They may investigate you to determine this.

If the risk to reputation is large enough to the company it's likely you will lose your job. If you've broken any rules that the company can find they may dismiss you, if not they may attempt to buy your silence (if not already locked down) as part of a settlement package. Either way you won't have much leverage to push this, the company can always say that this is just sour grapes on your part. They will have the upper hand. It's very simple for them to say "You raised the issue, they dealt with it and planned further initiatives but after dismissing you, you have threatened to make this public". You'll end up looking like the bad actor.

My advice is to assess the company on how they are now. If they meet your current values your best placed to not push in this manner and continue to work with them. You have more power to affect positive change from the inside than locked out.

Answer 5

As this post is now over a month old I will assume that the meeting has taken place; however, if it has not then this meeting can be very constructive given the following premise:

1. You are not calling the meeting to chastise anyone, but instead to bring attention to the fact that the information was published and available to a general public in a way that could be damaging to the company.

2. If your company does not already have a policy against discrimination, use the meeting as a platform to promote the creation of one. Suggest possibly heading up the team that creates such a policy, as this will increase your worth to the company.

3. In the likelihood that the reports in question have been already viewed by the public, your company will need to have a PR response prepared that covers how they have addressed the issue so that they are not caught flat-footed by their competition who may use it against them with negative press.

Your intention is to remain with the company, and that means you desire for the company to continue to grow and your concern is over the image of the company only. In today’s cancel culture, statements of the past could significantly damage their reputation, and you would like to work to prevent that from occurring in the future.

Answer 6

This answer is assuming that you are working in United States or a Western country, where there is more of a social stigma against discrimination. Like you, I find such behavior repugnant, and I am generally moderate in my political views.

That been said, I don't think direct confrontation via meeting is wise. I am giving the benefit of the doubt that your company executives are not being intentionally discriminatory, but that such views are due to ignorance. Your colleagues who said that more needed to be done are your biggest assets here. Forming a group where certain uncomfortable issues can be discussed openly is a first step. As a minority myself but who was raised in the USA for over 25 years, it's been my experience that while there are individuals and groups with hateful ideology, insensitivity is driven more often by stereotyping, trying to create a scapegoat, or pure ignorance. Your goal is not to directly tell people their views are unacceptable, but assume good intentions through raising awareness.

More generally, if you see another person being harassed / discriminated against , and that individual is unable / need help to defend him or herself, it should be fine to intervene. The idea that only a member of the discriminated class (racial minority, LGBTQ etc.) can respond is problematic as harassing behavior should not be tolerated at work. If the harasser says the victim does not care, you can say that you do and how it makes you uncomfortable. Assisting in creating a comfortable workplace for all should not be seen as savior behavior.