- On Tuesday, Insider reported for the first time on the unsealed employee polls that rocked the company in 2018.
- Nike attributed inappropriate behavior to an “island group of high profile managers”.
- The surveys described wide-ranging issues, including “normalized negative behavior…sexist”.
In 2018, allegations of a “boys club” culture rocked Nike.
Tuesday, Insider first report on unpublished employee surveys who has been instrumental in bringing the allegations to light and instigating Nike’s ongoing work to become more inclusive.
Ten of the investigations are now on the public record, after a successful legal challenge by Insider, in partnership with the Oregonian and the Portland Business Journal.
The investigations, written by female Nike employees in 2018, detail graphic allegations such as seeing a male executive receive oral sex from a lower-ranking employee, ‘sloppy drunk’ men putting their arms around of their colleagues on business trips and business in the workplace. And they describe a pressure cooker environment where women felt treated as inferior and called “bitch”, “darling” and “girls”. In several multi-page surveys, employees said the behavior contributed to an “overall” theme of “normalized negative, manipulative and sexist behavior” at the company.
“When I received this questionnaire, I asked several of my female colleagues how they felt about working at Nike,” one employee wrote in a survey. “I asked how fairly they were treated based on performance versus gender. All spoke unanimously of Nike’s ‘Boys Club.’ play in the sandbox.”
Another investigation described a meeting where an executive punched and shouted “to the point that saliva was coming out of his mouth” in front of 10 employees.
“The Men’s Network holds unwritten rules that define insiders versus outsiders,” the survey respondent wrote in two pages of typed and detailed concerns. “They decide who succeeds and who doesn’t. The women in this company have felt very little power to change a culture and environment that has been and continues to be disrespectful to women. Even women are disrespectful to women without consequence.This enterprise must lay a new foundation and begin at the highest level of the organization.
In 2018, in response to questions from The New York Times, which reported on Nike’s culture, Nike attributed inappropriate behavior within the company to an “island group of high-level managers, deep in the pockets of the organization. “, who “protected each other and looked the other way.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs in a full trial for sex discrimination against Nike said investigations show that problematic behavior within the company was not isolated.
“It wasn’t limited to one vertical or one department,” said Laura Salerno Owens, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney. “And it wasn’t limited to just one manager. It was a common experience across the company.”
Nike declined to answer Insider’s written questions about the investigations, including whether it stood by its earlier characterization of the behavior limited to an “island group of high-level managers.”
The company has since taken a series of steps to become more inclusive, including making salary adjustments, changing its hiring process, overhauling its compensation system and disclosing more information about its workforce demographics. -work.
Read the complete Insider story.
Do you work at Nike or have ideas to share? Contact journalist Matthew Kish via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-971-319-3830) or email (mkish@insider.com). Check Insider’s Guide to Sources for more tips on sharing information securely.
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