Have you ever heard of the Streisand effect? It’s the idea that trying to hide something only has the opposite effect, encouraging people to share it even more widely.
The world saw this in full force this summer, when a CEO was caught in an apparent tryst with the company’s Chief People Officer at a Coldplay concert. Caught on the stadium’s ‘kiss cam’, the pair opted to hide themselves from view, and became a viral meme, to the chagrin of their company and partners.
Well, something similar has happened again. The CEO of Nestlé has been fired over an “undisclosed romantic relationship” with a more junior employee, breaching the company’s code of conduct. Why then does there seem to be a spate of these HR busting romances—and does it say anything about the state of modern HR and business culture?
Bad romance
In some senses, these are two tales as old as time. Relationships like this have always happened within businesses, however unsavoury that prospect might be. Indeed, they aren’t even the only recent examples, with the CEO of BP being fired for similar relationships back in 2023. As much as some businesses might want to ban workplace romances, this is generally unrealistic as well as inadvisable. Many people meet their partners at work, and the outcome doesn’t have to have a negative effect on the business.
At board level, however, the dynamic is obviously different. Even with a manager and their subordinates at much lower levels, relationships are advised against due to the power dynamics involved. The more junior employee might feel some pressure in terms of their ongoing employment or career progression, with managers or other senior employees able to subtly discriminate against them and make things difficult if they rebuff their advances.
Even if the relationship is an entirely consensual and happy one, the dynamic is still at play. The senior employee could end up favouring their partner if the relationship isn’t out in the open, as indeed appears to have happened in the Nestlé case. This could lead to one person gaining an unfair advantage over their colleagues, and lead to simmering resentment and other issues if the relationship is suspected or revealed.
Responding in the right way
What might be surprising is how the HR departments of these relative companies have come to oust their CEOs. As we’ve discussed previously, it feels like the climate around business leadership has changed somewhat in recent months, if not years. There’s a sense that leaders can get away with more, whether that’s what they say or how they act. Much of this has been emboldened by the reelection of Trump—who has hardly been shy about his own romantic inclinations.
Score one for modern HR, then. But it may not be so much how these incidents have been responded to as the fact they happened at all which reflects the current landscape. That sense of imperviousness present in current discussions, and the sense of regression to old ideals, may have encouraged this behaviour. It’s interesting to consider whether Nestlé’s reaction would have been any different had another CEO not recently been humiliated for such a relationship, with the resultant negative press for his company.
While these incidents have been dealt with in the right way, it is a reflection of the challenges HR departments face, and how these may be mounting. These kinds of incidents not only pose potential reputational damage to the business—and damage to individuals within it—but also to the legitimacy of HR departments, and human resources as a whole. If HR doesn’t act on these kinds of issues, people lower down the rung will have little confidence that it will work for them.
The challenges faced by HR
This kind of scepticism about HR is one of the biggest challenges businesses and their HR departments face. Employees can often feel that HR is primarily invested in protecting the interests of the business rather than the individual. This can make these exact kinds of power imbalances so dangerous when they are abused, making affected individuals disinclined to report issues. This can only be harmful to the business, as rumours spread, employees become disaffected and leave, and the abuse is potentially allowed to continue.
What HR is now battling against is not just this stereotype, but also a wave of sexist politics. Beyond the general bravado of certain world leaders, the influence of figures such as Andrew Tate poses added risks of workplace abuse and harassment. The positive side of these firings is that it demonstrates that a red line still exists for these kinds of relationships. The worry is that, much like policies around Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) or LGBTQ+ support, such policies can easily be wound back, and those red lines erased.
In light of this, it’s vital that businesses reassess and reiterate the fundamental principles of HR, and the benefits that effective HR brings to companies. It is about handling grievances and complaints when they occur, yes, but it’s also about fostering a positive working environment, and one which supports, engages, and motivates employees. Abuse of power is a positive for no-one but the person abusing it, including the business. Propping up one individual is never worth the damage to others, or to the fundamental trust of both employees and the public in your leadership and your brand.
And Finally…
These couple of incidents were dealt with properly, and may not reflect anything other than a profession in fine health. Yet they do represent an inflection point for HR amidst the current political and cultural climate. While the outcomes of these incidents are ultimately positive, the fact that they are occurring with seemingly greater frequency is cause for some concern—and a good excuse to double down on ensuring HR serves its function of bringing the best out of everyone.
