Dive Brief:
- A federal district court has approved a joint dismissal motion between Workday and a former employee who alleged that the company discriminated against her on the basis of her gender and national origin, according to a Thursday court filing.
- The plaintiff in Mohan v. Workday sued the HR technology vendor last year. She claimed that her manager showed preferential treatment to co-workers, specifically by passing her over for promotion in favor of less experienced and less qualified White male candidates. She further alleged that, when she raised concerns about this to her manager, he threatened to give her a negative performance review.
- Subsequent attempts to raise concerns with Workday’s HR staff led to additional retaliation, the plaintiff claimed. She alleged that HR staff twice reprimanded her for leaving negative feedback about her manager weeks prior to her termination, for which she claimed Workday gave no explanation. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, and Workday did not respond to a request for comment.
Dive Insight:
In her lawsuit, the plaintiff detailed multiple attempts to raise concerns about her manager to HR staff at Workday. Initially, an HR employee directed the plaintiff to discuss the matter with her manager’s supervisor. After meeting with the supervisor, the plaintiff’s manager again harassed her regarding her performance, she alleged.
Later, the plaintiff issued a subsequent complaint via an “independent HR investigation option” made available to employees in the event that they felt a situation was “too risky to use HR.” This only resulted in further harassment, the plaintiff claimed, with the manager “berating [the plaintiff] daily, threatening her with poor performance reviews, and micromanaging her work.”
The matter escalated when the plaintiff surfaced the issue in an annual performance review that provided feedback about the manager. An HR employee said the plaintiff’s criticism, as included in the review, violated Workday’s policies, was “disruptive to business” and could be met with further discipline.
The claims against Workday — which also faces an ongoing, separate discrimination lawsuit over one of its artificial intelligence hiring tools — may underscore the importance of internal HR investigation procedures that center on good-faith review of misconduct allegations. This situation can be made further complicated when the individual accused of misconduct is a leader or executive, sources previously told HR Dive, due to the power dynamics at play.
In order to navigate such situations, HR teams may need to get in touch with legal counsel and, as a preventative step, ensure that their complaint intake process provides clear guidance on how to move forward in various stages of an investigation.
