Uber Technologies Inc.

Written and copyrighted by Gary Dessler, PhD.

The year 2017 was a tough one for Uber Technologies Inc.¹³⁸ An Uber engineer posted a blog called Reflecting on One Very, Very Strange Year in Uber, in which she detailed, among other things, a culture of harassment at Uber. Almost at once, Uber values that symbolized its win at any cost way of doing things (values like builders build, always be hustlin, and meritocracy and toe stepping) were called into question. So in 2017, not only was Ubers core employee turnover too high, but six top executives stepped down, including the president, finance head, senior vice president of engineering, and CEO Travis Kalanick.

Ubers Board of Directors retained former attorney general Eric Holder, Jr. to conduct an analysis of Ubers culture. Holders recommendations provide insight into the problems Uber needed to address. The lawyers recommended, for instance, that Uber: prohibit romantic relationships among employees where one person reports to the other; institute guidelines on using alcohol and controlled substances at work; adopt a zero tolerance policy with respect to harassment, discrimination, and retaliation; broaden its recruitment practices to include sources of minority job candidates; and that the Board of Directors create a special ethics and culture committee.

Questions

Without doing any more research beyond what you learned in this chapter, what steps would you suggest Uber take to improve employee retention? Was there any information in previous chapters of this book that would help to illustrate other steps Uber could take to improve retention? Use other Internet sources, including Uber.com, to finalize an answer to the question: What other steps should Uber take to improve employee retention?

should be at least 350 words.