metoo eventually?

 I have seen a couple of stories about the mess of high profile allegation fueled cases cropping up recently along with a couple of articles about workplace culture changing between men and women due to the perceived threat of accusations. 

The interesting aspect of this is that its mostly a perception issue at the moment. However it does ignore the problem of time. 

The current politics around metoo and sexual harrasment in the workplace means that it perceived as easier to lodge a complaint and at least in high profile cases, get a settlement.  It does make you wonder if anyone in the finance dept has started to do any risk calculations based on this trend? Got to imagine someone in an insurance company has at least poked it. 

So here is a risk scenario for you. 

Worker at given company A gets into financial or social situation and feels the need to "cash out" all their options.  For ethics free employees this used to be things like injury claims, compo for emotional distress etc.  But now we seem to have a trend to try to cash out historical "sexual harrassment/assult" claims even after long periods.  

You would have to imagine that people who have a potential meal ticket and are pushed by life, vengence, fame seeking or any other motivaion might be considering taking a run at this kind of payout.  Harrassment litigation has always been a thing, but with the threat of reputational damage magnified by social media, this has got to be a new dimension with a new risk profile. 

As this idea is really only taken hold recently and the population who has seen this stratgegy work, start to come to the ends of their employment, one wonders if there will be more opportunistic attempts to milk the situations that cannot be proven but can be harrassed into a settlement by the threat of social media.  

There is an argument to be made that there is a more socially actuve generation rolling into workplaces that potentially pose a risk to organisations based on their attitudes and the culture they have been in through their formative years that may be different to any generation past.  Seeing celebrities "cash out" awkward workplace incidents has got to be giving some ideas lower down the social ladder. 

The question is whether this will become a known pressure in hiring policy or if anyone would dare to write it down anywhere for fear of a discrimination suite.  

These kind of emergent behaviours are always fun to speculate about but very hard to actually prove because they are as much perception as reality and the reality is often something that is hard to admit to.  They also dont happen in a vacume.  There are other factors that could appear as more primary drivers, while thse sub-text type factors mearly make the opportunity seem more possible or socially acceptable.  Sort of like nudge theory but at a population scale. 

Does make you wonder if the predetory legal firms will start to victimise particular employers or celebrities like they did with the high profile hollywood cases and trawl for any previous employees who might be inclined to make a claim.  Based on previous behaviour, this has got to be a highly lucrative strategy.  

You could imagine the lawyers waiting at the exit door for any employees who get dismissed and seeing if they can do a wrongful dismissal, injury, harrassment etc case. At some point this will get normalised and turned into a business model.  This will just be part of leaving a job.  

Got to imagine this will eventually be part of the considerations for hiring practices. Although its hard to see if it will be a significant pressure as the 'shock' value of metoo has already worn off and the value of trying to damage a celebrity reputation is not exactly new. Shame is one of those tools that needs both parties to play the game for it to work.  Business ethics and repuations make shame a little less effective as a weapon than for celebrities who may have a more emotional based reputation. 

I guess it all comes back to that game of trying to see the future when hiring a new employee.  Nothing really new there. Relationships are always about taking a chance.... 

The only new dynamic in this equation that we have not clearly seen play out is the decay in private relationships in the US that mean women are having to look at their financial welfare through a different lens when they hit the wall socially as well as financially.  It would suggest that women who have not got any other "safety net" might be incentivised to make this kind of a play out of a need to try to "secure the bag" as the gold diggers are alledged to say.