I recently started a new job at a investment/wealth management company. I work in IT, this is my first time working for a financial services company. I've made some friends but as it's a small company it's very a much a cross-team friendship.
Tonight we went for drinks and a conversation came up about some job interviews on a different team. The person responsible for hiring this role said he had already chosen/offered the job etc. Some of the people I was with decided to find the LinkedIn of the person offered the job. One of the relatively young woman on the same team commented that she didn't have much experience and they could have given the job to her, she meant it is a joke. The person hiring explained that this woman did way better at uni, has experience from somewhere prestigious and then said "most importantly her family are loaded and on my potential client list, this is our in", I thought he was joking but he went on to list everything he knows about her family, and how much money they must have and how he looked on the sold prices for her address and it's a flat which sold for over a million, just really personal information. Someone then found her instagram and all the men (most married) were commenting on how fit she was and how "shaggable" with one guy saying "who cares if she's shit at the job, sit me across from her, I'll help her and I can look at those tits all day" another guy said "what a combo of pretty and hot, can't wait to wank over that tonight". The other woman and I there both told them to pack it in and left immediately, the other woman is young and said it made her very uncomfortable, two men also left with us saying it made them feel uneasy but they didn't call the others out.
Now it's already a white male dominated company, less than 25% of employees are female. The girls who are there already, especially the younger ones aren't treated massively well and this has resulted in many leaving so the number of women is declining. All of the senior roles are held by men, most of the department heads (barring one) are men. HR is outsourced, slow to reply and apparently useless.
On the walk home the other woman phoned another colleague, when she told him of what was said. The reply to the first guys comment was "sounds like something he'd say" and to the second "yeah he was obviously joking".
There are several under 25s in the office, mostly women and this new employee would be one of them.
I said to those I was with I would report it to HR tomorrow, one went silent and then said yeah maybe we should have a word with them first before doing that (this was a guy). The other woman told me it wouldn't be worth my time and the other guy said yeah it's shit they shouldn't have spoke like that.
AIBU to think this absolutely has to go to HR? My DH thinks it's pointless, it happened outside of work, they were just commenting on pictures (but I also think the reason for hiring her seems unethical) and if no one would back me up they'd probably only get a warning if that.
I feel so uncomfortable and I think I'm going to start looking elsewhere!!