Netflix CEO Reed Hastings shares sexual harassment story with employees

Getty/Ethan Miller

• Netflix CEO Reed Hastings shares a story with employees to
  help them understand why some sexual harassment victims don’t
  report incidents.
• “Statistics don’t move people, stories move people,”
  Hastings said.
• Hastings tells employees about a colleague who was
  sexually harassed by a male superior and never reported
  it.
• “It’s really high stakes to report an incident of
  harassment, and that’s why a lot of people don’t report it,” he
  added.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings shared at the Wall Street Journal’s
recent Women in the Workplace gala (via Quartz) that he tells a story
to employees about a colleague being sexually harassed to
demonstrate why some victims don’t report incidents.

“Statistics don’t move people, stories move people,”
Hastings said.

Hastings said that a Netflix colleague faced “tremendous
sexual harassment for two years” from a male superior, but didn’t
report it out of fear that it wouldn’t be dealt with properly, or
that she might lose a job she loved because of it.

“Finally one of her colleagues reported it, and once we
found out we promptly investigated it and fired him,” Hastings
said. “Only later, as I got to know the victim, she explained to
me that she loved her job, and she wasn’t sure what would happen
if she brought it up. She wasn’t sure if we would deal with it.
She wasn’t sure if we would fire him. And you know, this is a
highly competent, professional person.”

Hastings added, “It’s really high stakes to report an
incident of harassment, and that’s why a lot of people don’t
report it.”

Hastings has told this story to Netflix employees “again
and again” to try and hammer the point home, he said.