To think the CEO of McDonalds

[spanglydangly]

Should not have been dismissed for a relationship with a "subordinate"

As long as both parties are not acting inappropriately at work. I.e blatant favouritism or bring their personal line into work then what's the problem?

Or am I missing something massive?

“@passthecherrycoke McD’s is a publicly listed company”

I know- that’s what I said?

I do agree with your points re line blurring. However I also believe there is far more to this than the public are being told. They wanted him gone.

And I suspect they’re trying to look like the good guy of the #metoo movement whilst they do it- good opportunity for them

Yes, it's definitely a business decision, because it's a business! But I don't care. If all companies made similar, good decisions just to look good, it wouldn't bother me. It's better than doing nothing. I'm under no illusions about McDonald's of all places, but if they are enforcing this policy across the company, I think that's a good thing. No sympathy for the CEO at all.

I know and have know of a few women who "slept with the boss" and got promoted. In all cases bar one the women were cast out when the affairs ended. I think having a "no relationship" clause covers their back for potential misconduct or tribunal claims if that happens.

Whilst I understand your view, I think the company could be open to a lot of law suits if they didnt enforce this rule.
He may not have coerced her to be a relationship, they would still be open charges of favourtism

We have a similar rule at work that is taken seriously due to rules about remaining objective with the work we do. What happens in reality is people declare it and if one person is directly managing another, someone is moved to a new department. Perfectly normal clause in a contract.

It’s a perfectly reasonable policy. Hats off to MacDonalds for enforcing it.

He knew the rules, signed the contract, don't like it, get another job or get fired. Meh. YABU.

I think there's got to be more to it than just that. In every case of a male very senior person and a junior female I've seen it's been the junior female who was managed out in the end

KatherineJaneway massively disagree with you here. Banning relationships because of the existence of exploitation is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Of course procedures should be in place to deal with harassment etc. but instant dismissal because you fell for a colleague is incredibly draconian. Abuse is a terrible thing, but this kind of contract is completely disproportionate.

He knew the rule. Regardless of the fairness of the rule, it's there and he broke it. If the board didn't act then they may as well get rid of the rule.

Sounds like he's walking away with a financial package so doesn't sound like there is something more sinister going on as frankly it's not exactly going to be cheap based on his salary.

There is no way anyone could convince me that this rule in someone's contract is reasonable. It just isn't.

It is the rule (Military Law) in the forces and for good reason. And if you, as I have, have had the idiot (or maybe not) useless woman who is blowing the boss promoted over you, you might see why this kind of thing isn't a good idea. (he later, long long after they had both left my part of the organisation and i had been promoted twice) told me he'd been wrong because she was useless at her job and he was sorry.

But i was still 3 years "down" on my career path and not ready to accept that. Fucker.

Blimey I thought everyone was shagging each other in the military. They all seem to be married to each other

@lyralalala I totally agree- the rule is one thing, but an easy and simple way out was for the woman (guessing it was a woman) to resign. Anyone would’ve accepted this if there wasn’t more going on.
If I wanted to date the CEO of McDonald’s it’s hard to believe I wouldn’t be happy enough to quit so we could make a go of it. There’s more to it.

When I was in the military (pull up a sandbag…) there was a lot of shagging. There was also a lot of coerced sex being had by the senior (even lance corporal types, if it involved young, green female privates) ranks. And only on one occasion did i ever see anything approaching it being handled well - and that was only because his (non-military) wife lamped the poor lass in the face in the middle of the NAAFI (shop) and because he was a serial philanderer. And the private who was punched had a dad who was a Major in an adjacent base.

It's difficult, and mostly it's ok. But often it's not so better to have a blanket rule and turn a blind eye as long as there isn't anything really bad going on (similar rank, similar age, similar service experience, not working in the same job etc etc - after all, it's how so many of us met our wives/husbands )

I understand it's part of his contract, in which case, he was punished according to that. It does seem odd to me though, I met my husband when he was my new manager at work. 14 years ago this month, 3 kids, house etc. If that was a rule there, maybe we'd never have been together.

Why should the woman resign? Talk about misogynist.

I think it is a fairly common policy with USA companies. Some do have a caveat that you can declare a relationship though.

He knew he was taking a risk and having seen how much he was getting paid I have no sympathy for him.

Why should the woman resign?

In this instance, because if the man is CEO of the company, he's presumably got the bigger wage of the two - he could better afford to sub her while she found another job, than vice-versa. Common sense, not misogyny.

It’s not that the woman should resign, it’s that it makes more sense for the subordinate to resign. I mean we don’t know what his partner does at McDonald’s but it’s far more likely to be a job she could do anywhere as opposed to McDonald’s CEO

Well it's up to McDonald's how they run their business. It's a fairly common policy to ban relationships between managers and subordinates, and given that he was in charge of the whole shebang, everyone's a subordinate. He will have been aware of this clause he signed up to, so will the person he had the relationship with.

Work relationships are a total nightmare, especially when there's a problem in the partnership, they're not talking, and it's all tears in the toilets, drama and refusal to speak to anyone connected to the other party.

If they brought this rule in to mcdonalds in the uk they would have to fire half the staff. In stores at least. My dh worked in maccies for a few years after school and people swapped partners like no tomorrow. There was one manager that had relationships with at least 3 staff members. Actually thinking of the agro that caused it might actually be a good rule.

I think the no relationship rule is great

I knew a couple where the woman was the head of HR and the man was a director who was a complete sleeze and hit on all the juniors. They were too worried to go to HR cos she was married to him.

Good rule IMO

He needs to keep his trousers zipped up.

At least he got to burn off all those Big Macs

People saying the rule is unfair like there literally isn't millions of people walking around that you can date instead of your employee.