226: PR Disaster: How A Woman's Stand Against Inappropriate Company Chat On TikTok Went Viral

As of this recording, over 14 million people heard a Boston based staffing executive share her side of a disturbing case of sexual harassment in real time. Where you guessed it, TikTok.

First of all, if we're going to continue working together, I want to work with a woman sales representative because I don't want to have to see locker room talk about myself when you're sharing screenshots.

Welcome to the Indestructible PR podcast where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. In this episode, how one company was completely unprepared to handle massive exposure of one of their massive vulnerabilities in the workplace. Locker room chat. That's a euphemism for sexual harassment. A little over two weeks ago, Whitney Sharp, a Boston based executive at a large staffing firm, captured disturbing interaction of harassment on a work phone call. Now there's a viral clip all over TikTok that has furthered the conversations about what it's like being a woman in the workplace. The clip that I played in the open is available in the show notes if you want to listen to it and watch it. But on the call, Sharp is sitting in her living room. It looks like a working from home situation and her phone is propped up and she's filming the one way interaction. We only see Whitney Sharp talking to someone on screen now. You can hear it in her voice. She's a very calm, measured, intelligent woman. Because this is a conversation about sexual harassment and locker room talk, I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised to hear that she's absolutely beautiful. She was a former Miss Massachusetts in 2016. I only learned that reading a Business Insider article by Jeff Weiss. He posted that on on January 6, but he explained in his article that Whitney Rose, 617, that's her TikTok name, shared this video of a vendor evaluation. So she is someone who is interviewing possible vendors and she asked the VP of sales for a particular request and that request was due to an exchange that she saw in the team's chat, that is the teams network and she saw all the chit chat between a bunch of guys talking in locker room talk and they were talking about her. Now one of the salesmen can be heard acknowledging in the comments that it was an inexcusable mistake. And that's good because it certainly is. If you go to that TikTok post, you will see the overwhelming amount of support for Whitney Sharp supporting what she did and talking about the conversation of workplace harassment. I was scrolling through all of the comments and there was even more conversation on LinkedIn. I ended up posting a TikTok in response to that video. And I said it from, well, the perspective of sexual harassment, certainly at work and what women deal with on the job. But as always, I'm looking for that other angle, the reputation angle, the public relations angle. Because when I see an employee share video about something that's happening in real time in the workplace, I'm noticing. That's what I'm noticing. I noticed everything else was happening, but that is what I noticed because that is exposing a massive vulnerability. I mean, to go on TikTok to be a video with millions and millions of views, your business could be gone overnight. And if you look at not just the reach of that video, you look at the commentary of that video and you can just imagine if you were the business owner or the VP of sales just in your head, you could just think of 14 million people holding pitchforks coming after you. Now Sharp said that she later received an email apology from the vendor's VP of sales, but she had said in a later video that she felt it was insincere that there wasn't any outline for plans for any type of recourse for the people who harassed her. And in a follow up TikTok post, Sharp said that the VP of Sales had no idea that the TikTok had gone viral and felt like the VP of Sales was simply phoning her to save the sale.

If you go on and read this email, it says, I understand you would like to work with a female moving forward. However, I do not have anyone skilled enough to assist you that is female. Red flag, red flag. Don't you see that as a problem?

Again, you can find that TikTok clip in the show notes that highlights another issue because not only were they dealing, was she dealing with harassment, she was also highlighting the fact that there weren't any women in the office to take that position to handle the interaction with Whitney Sharp. So she is exposing a massive vulnerability with that company and likely many other companies out there. And Sharpe did say in another follow up video that she was so reluctant to share what the talk was about because it was so disgusting to her that she didn't even want her friends and family to know what was said to her in those chats. And I'm sure many people I know I've have, I've dealt with every decade of my working life, I've dealt with, dealt with sexual harassment many people have of all genders but certainly a number of women deal with it on a, on a basis. So on the one hand it's nice to see this type of female vigilante to go out and kind of expose what a lot of women deal with in the workplace all the time. But for me I'm looking at it as another. There's another angle there as well and that is from not just the human relations but the public relations aspect. When I see a video with that many views, I want to know who knows what, when, what is the response? Is there a response when something goes on TikTok and it goes fast, like lightning speed, Someone can lose it all in a matter of moments on TikTok and to be the owner of that business. Oh my goodness. So I was waiting for the response from the company and nowadays my more and more we do not see a response. This is the new trend and that is going to be a follow up podcast in the near future. No one's responding anymore, so this company certainly didn't either. Now I am aware of the company. It's not necessarily public knowledge because they didn't put out a press release like I said or statement or any form of public apology, but all of the interactions that happened from this call because that company is now very well aware of this video, this 14 million viewed video by now because it showed up on Reddit. Reddit is a place where a lot of people can interact anonymously or somewhat quasi anonymously if they aren't doxxed, where they can share, share opinions, share things that happen behind the scenes that they don't want to make public. I had an Instagram follower share a great exchange. It was a woman, a woman in tech subreddit and they shared some inside information about what was happening after video went viral. So it's worth noting that there were a lot of people at this company and I'm again I'm not going to share the company simply because they didn't make a public statement. So I'm not going to add to it. But a lot of the employees are incredibly disappointed with the actions of those coworkers and also of management incredibly dissatisfied with the response from leadership. Now there's a screenshot that was taken from a mandatory all hands meeting about the quote unquote company values that took place one day after the incident. So again when that VP of sales says that they weren't familiar with what happened, I highly, highly doubt that with the amount of people who are on social media, even how the algorithm works because if it was someone from that company and she's sharing that video about that company, you know how the Google works where someone says something and then it shows up on your phone. So I don't believe it. I just don't believe it that all these guys at that company, they don't have wives or girlfriends, you know, that are on TikTok. I don't believe it. But Whitney said that she, out of respect, she wasn't going to share the company. But if you want to go to Reddit, I'm not going to include the Reddit link in the show notes, but I think you can find it easy enough. But the founder of the company apologized on behalf of the firm and did give a list of actions that the company was taking that was doing to address the behavior. So all staff involved, they were going to be suspended and take training. The entire staff was going to have new training on professionalism and harassment. There was going to be an external revision review of all the training that the current staff is taking. And they have already employed an experienced female sales trainer to do the review immediately. They're reviewing hiring, the onboarding processes that they have in place. They want to ensure that there's female leadership involved in that as well, and sending as soon as possible global female leadership to the Boston office to support the team and ensure that the culture and values are consistent globally. So their inside quote, this is from their inside all hands meeting. Our primary focus as a company is to ensure we hire and train staff that are consistently professional and treat prospects and customers and other staff respectfully. So that's their focus, is just ensuring that we hire and train staff. Oh my gosh. Wow. It's not about hiring and training. I mean, that is definitely an objective of what they need to do, but it shouldn't be their key focus. It should be about harassment. But it's not a public statement, so we're not going to say anything more on that. Now back to Whitney. Not surprising. She has seen a huge growth in her TikTok following. So she had less than 100 followers a day before the incident and now she's over. She's on her way to 40,000 followers. She did say in this Insider Business article that she wants to harness her newfound gift to speak up. And in addition to chronicling the ongoing situation, she plans to furnish career advice about obstacles she's faced in the corporate world more broadly. I can imagine she's going about her day to day. Now all of a sudden she has a whole new TikTok Persona that she has to pursue. Now, I know exactly how she feels, but I know she's up to the task and she's beautiful when she does that. All right, so that is what happened with Whitney Sharp and this company. Now, just for this last piece, this is the angle that I'm coming at it. Think about this now from a reputation point of view. Is your company ready for this type of massive exposure? So there are two things that were happening here now, the Internet and social media is a great tool for staying connected, staying informed. I'm the first person to say I love it drives my business, definitely. But it also creates gossip and rumors and internal workplace issues that can be shared like that in a moment. And people, when they're frustrated, when they're frustrated about their job, when they're frustrated about some type of customer experience, they're going to take it out on social media that venting is going to happen online. People want their opinions to be heard. And in so many of these digital channels nowadays, people are allowed to be anonymous and they can still voice their opinions. So even in that Reddit room, we don't know anyone who posted that. However, I'm sharing it with you. It got to me and now I'm sharing it with you all on a podcast. This type of inside information can be leaked at any time. So if you work for a company, you run a company, you own a company, you want to have a social media policy in place, what people can and cannot share. I don't want to discount what Whitney, what Whitney Sharp shared about what happened to her and her company, a lot of good came from that. But if I worked for the company, if I own the company or was running the company that Whitney Sharp worked for, I would not want my employees sharing that video. I just wouldn't. It doesn't mean that good didn't come out from that particular video, but I would have policies in place where those videos could not be shared. Because so many things on TikTok can be taken out of context. So many things are subject to bias and algorithms, and sometimes reality can become quite fantastical in a moment's notice. So if you're a company, you want to have a social media policy because as social media continues to grow in popularity, all companies should be aware of the potential impact of customers, of employees sharing negative experiences. Employees should be allowed to comment on their work or just have. Since work is such a part of their lives, they should be able to share that. But there should be guidelines in place. You shouldn't Run a company with an iron fist when it comes to social media. I mean, if it's run really well, they'll share how much they like working there and wouldn't that be great? But as cultures get worse and worse in companies, just be prepared that other people are going to share that. Now what happens if you have a customer in this case like a vendor, an outside vendor? What is the risk when someone shares? There's a couple of them. I mean, one, there's just a huge loss to brand reputation, negative reviews and comments. You know, any type of viral video can spread quickly and will tarnish the reputation of the company and anyone affiliated with it. There's also a financial impact. If you're investor owned, your investors might lose faith in your company, in your ability to lead that company. Or companies might take business elsewhere. They might not want to deal with you anymore. That will result in a lot of lost revenue for a company. Keep in mind, when things happen like in this case with Whitney Sharp, there's a mobilization factor. When you touch a moment of relevance between all of these employees or people in the public who share those same feelings and values, they all come together, they rise together, and a lot of them want to bring you down. When mobilized group rise up over one issue, someone's coming down. Now, in every episode, I include one indestructible PR tip. It's easy to remember. It's a takeaway to help you build an indestructible reputation. And here it is. In business, there should always be a human factor in every communication or human relations, HR contingency plan, every community. And not just where we live, but who people interact with, who they hang out with, whether they're employees or customers, they all live by a set of values. And a lot of these values now that are universal are shaped by culture. And where culture is often shaped is on social media every day. There is a TikTok vigilante who is shifting how people think about certain things that happen out there. But if you're wondering, well, what is it? How do I know? If it's constantly changing and shifting, what's the point? Why am I even in business? It all comes down to this, that people want to feel safe, they want to feel heard and they want to feel respected. They want to have plans in place to ensure that everyone in the company and who interacts with them feels protected. So whether it's an employee in your company or customer working with your company, safe, heard, respected. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks so much for listening. Bye for now.