When company you keep crosses line of acceptable behaviour

It often starts with an awkward question at a family gathering or cocktail party: How could you work for that company?

It often starts with an awkward question at a family gathering or cocktail party: How could you work for that company?

Is your employer making you queasy? More than a dozen prom­inent employers have come under attack recently over allegations of sexual misconduct or harassment, abusive sales tactics, lax handling of customer data or inquiries into whether their social network platforms are used for harm.

Employees often are vulnerable to anxiety or guilt when a shadow is cast on their employer’s image, says Annie McKee, author of How to Be Happy at Work.

Some wonder, “Why am I here, if this company is doing this thing that I believe is wrong?”

There are ways to keep your morale up while working for an employer under fire. It may require separating your sense of identity from your employer’s image or looking for ways to find purpose or meaning on the job.

For some, the solution is to leave. Recruiters often see “a flurry of activity when a company’s name hits the headlines”, as employees test their prospects in the job market, says John Reed, senior executive director of technology recruiting at staffing firm Robert Half in California.

Paulina Lopez wanted to work for an employer she could feel proud of and thought she’d found that at Uber Technologies. She liked her colleagues at the ride-hailing company, and was treated well. But family members raised questions after seeing reports of alleged sexism and sexual harassment in Uber’s executive ranks.

“My family was asking, ‘You’re not like that. Why do you want to stay at a place where something like that could happen?’ ” Lopez says. She considers herself a feminist, and “staying there would have meant going against what I believe in”, not because she’d been treated badly but because she believed her colleagues had been wronged in ways that might affect her in the future, she says. She parted on good terms with colleagues and moved to a new job.

An Uber spokeswoman declined to comment but referred to steps the company had taken recently to prevent misconduct, including two internal investiga­tions, numerous changes to improve workplace culture, expanded manager training and formation of a new employee rela­tions team to address complaints.

It’s harder these days for employees to separate their personal identity from their job.

“Nothing is hidden any more” because details of corporate and personal life can be shared widely on social media, says Mary C. Gentile. She is the author of Giving Voice to Values, a book on acting on your values.

Attacks on a company’s ethics cut especially deep for younger employees, who place a higher value on finding purpose and meaning in their work, according to a survey this year of nearly 8000 millennial workers by Deloitte LLP.

Many employees stay on the job anyway because they need the pay cheque or don’t see better opportunities elsewhere.

Others find satisfaction in focusing on personal career goals.

Gabby Toro-Rosa took a job at a unit of Uber last year to gain sales experience while waiting for an opening at a public relations agency where she wanted to work. While the negative publicity made selling Uber’s services a little harder, “I didn’t get worked up about it because I knew I was doing my job,” she says. Her manager treated her well and she recently moved on to the job she wanted.

McKee advises figuring out what parts of your work you can control and asking yourself: Is there a way for me to live my values and have a positive impact at the company?

One manager she coached was frustrated by his employer’s toxic, disrespectful culture. He resolved to manage his own team differently, and set up processes to treat employees well and reward them for successes, says McKee, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.

Some employees pitch a new role that doesn’t yet exist, says Christine Bader, author of The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist, a book about how to advocate inside companies for social or environmental causes. “If you feel there’s some potential to do good work, then take some time to explore whether you can do that,” says Bader, a Seattle-based former human rights policy manager at oil company BP. She recently finished a two-year stint at Amazon setting up programs aimed at ensuring fair working conditions among its private-label suppliers.

“There’s a shadowy side,” however, Bader says. “If you take that thinking too far, to the point that you’re rationalising staying at a place where you truly shouldn’t be, then that’s no good.”

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL