Intel Corporation today announced the resignation of Brian Krzanich as CEO and a member of the board of directors. The board has named Chief Financial Officer Robert Swan interim chief executive officer, effective immediately.
Intel was recently informed that Mr. Krzanich had a past consensual relationship with an Intel employee. An ongoing investigation by internal and external counsel has confirmed a violation of Intel’s non-fraternization policy, which applies to all managers. Given the expectation that all employees will respect Intel’s values and adhere to the company’s code of conduct, the board has accepted Mr. Krzanich’s resignation.
Companies have these rules for a reason – and it’s good to see the consequences of violating them apply to the CEO as well. That being said, I doubt Krzanich will be living in a cardboard box any time soon.
He had a chip on his shoulder
Wouldn’t have been a problem if her name wasn’t Ryzenal.
Thom Holwerda,
I don’t know the details, but if it really was consensual as stated, then this type of policy seems like PC culture gone overboard. If someone is dating another worker at the same company and it’s not affecting their work and there’s no harassment, then it’s none of the companies damned business if employees choose to date each other.
The world would be a worse place if many companies implemented this policy. Please stay out of our personal lives.
You know, we’re in the #metoo era now…
The reason policies like this exist is that managers have a lot of power over their subordinates, and relationships are a hotbed for jealousy, strife, disagreements, favouritism, fighting, and so on. It makes perfect sense for companies to ban such relationships, to protect subordinates, managers, and the company itself (lawsuits and bad press) alike.
Note that such policies often do not ban relationships between non-managerial employees.
Edited 2018-06-21 15:26 UTC
But what if it was true love… I guess one of them would have to resign? Oh, looks like true love won the day here.
Thom Holwerda,
Keep an eye on it sure, but I still think it’s wrong for companies to have a say in people’s personal dating lives absent an actual grievance.
Company policy shouldn’t have any say who you can date outside of work, but should make clear what the professional boundaries are at work.
Thing is, it’s practically a statistical certainty that grievances will occur, and boundaries crossed. Which can bring bad press. Apparently quite a few companies just try to avoid such mess altogether…
zima,
Hmm, that’s very interesting. The implicit assertion here is that there’s a statistical certainly that people in positions of power are morally corrupt and would cross these sexual harassment boundaries.
I still think it’s wrong to punish people for things they haven’t yet done. Rather than punishing people who aren’t guilty, a better preventative measure would be to have them recuse themselves in matters invoking potential conflicts of interest the way we do with judges.
Edited 2018-06-24 00:29 UTC
I meant it more like: that’s simply what “love” often does to people…
Most couples meet at work or through friends at work. If it doesn’t affect work then your employer has no business what you do in your personal life.
I am sure you would be the first to complain if employers were demanding to look through people’s Facebook profiles.
Also it is irrelevant how well off the person off is. Just because someone is wealthy it doesn’t mean that it is okay to sack someone over what was a fling at work.
Edited 2018-06-21 17:54 UTC
Sorry, the personal relationships of an employee – managerial or otherwise – should not be within the purview of the business. At least unless it becomes directly intertwined in the business in the sense of nepotism or harassment occurring.
Your job ends when you walk out the door. What you do on your own time and who you do it with is not your employer’s concern.
While in general I agree with your sentiment, the rules are put in place to avoid situations where a manager might be in a relationship with s subordinate.
This creates a conflict of interest. In this case, we are talking about a married CEO being in an extra-merital relationship with a subordinate. I would assume his position as CEO played a significant part in the relationship with the employee.
Its really difficult, at least in the US according to our established laws, to determine if there is or isn’t any harassment in cases like this. That’s why companies often have policies like this. It provides them with some reasonable safeguards against lawsuits. The employee in question can be let go, without having to prove any further impropriety or improper benefit.
Most big companies have since long had regulations against relationships between managers and subordinates due to, among other things, the power dynamics in play.
I am aware that both signed the contract, that forbids intimate relationships – but I find this … well … grotesque.
The company to which I choose to sell my workforce, should have no say about my private life as long as I am able to separate things.
And it should clearly have no rule over my feelings towards others.
Thom!
Can you choose who to fall in love with?
Why are you supporting this agenda?
Edited 2018-06-21 19:50 UTC
Ok,its not obvious for everyone at first, I understand. Here is the scenario:
CEO is dating manager A.
If manager A is ever promoted, that is an indication that sleeping with the CEO has positive career implications.
If the relationship ends, and manager A is let go it indicates that there might have been a consequence for ending the relationship.
If sleeping with the CEO does lead to promotion: thats against the law
If ending a relationship with the CEO leads to dismissal, thats against the law.
What is a company to do, if either of those happen?
Bill Shooter of Bul,
Can I ask what law that is?
There are nepotism laws for for several government positions, but california (where intel is based) doesn’t have them and as far as I can tell nepotism laws generally aren’t applicable to non-government positions.
http://www.ncsl.org/research/ethics/50-state-table-nepotism-restric…
Hypothetically, if nepotism laws did apply to ordinary companies, I can tell you that the majority of my employers/clients would be in violation of it since hiring relatives and friends is quite common, even when it’s the CEO’s relatives.
If you are referring to some other laws, then I’d like a link to read up on them.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2016-title29-vol4/xml/CFR-2016-tit…
1604.11
Sexual harassment.
Note, I was referring to “sleeping” in the sexual sense. This is not a reference to nepotism.
Bill Shooter of Bul,
Ah, thank you for the clarification.
I imagine most of us are in agreement that sexual harassment would a problem for the company. However I don’t think it’s right to terminate someone’s employment preemptively when they haven’t actually committed any acts of sexual harassment. Consensual & uncoerced relationships are not sexual harassment and should not be treated as such.
Let’s change a few words :
In that logic, the CEO and every time there is some hierarchical relation between employees should never, ever do anything outside of work.
These policies about private affairs are stupid, moralizing crap.
I know you meant this to show the ridiculousness of the rule, but actually this is a much more likely scenario in the real world. Most CEOs will not be dumb enough to promote their boyfriend but many will be dumb enough to think no one will notice when the promote their golfing buddy.
Companies should not decide on someone’s personal fate.
This is strictly a private affair.
Agree.
I’m pretty sure that such company policies would be illegal in Europe.
Here is an article a bit related to that subject :
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/valentines-day-offi…
A company may take sanctions only after misbehavior has occurred, such as unfair treatment, harrasment, etc, but a company cannot forbid beforehand intimate relationships, whatever their place in the organisation chart.
It cannot be a valid reason for termination.
It is also very hypocrite.
Where is the limit ? You cannot work with anyone from your family ? Maybe you must not work with your the friend you had at school as you may favour them ? Maybe having the same tastes about music or cars or whatever will change the opinion on a subordinate and it could disadvantage his/her co-workers ?
I couldn’t give a slightest f**k about who is dating who in (any) company. In fact, I DON’T want to know. If you actually care about things like that, then you’re just a creepy voyeurist.
If we continue this path, it’s not too long when companies will start telling us what color drapes to hang in our kitchen.
Edited 2018-06-22 06:17 UTC
Fraternizing with another employee sounds totally like the genuine reason he would have left the company, not his terrible management of Spectre and Meltdown or his inability to handle AMD’s growing threat, now extending to the server market, not to mention the PR clusterfsck that was the ridiculous 28 core 5ghz mini fridge fiasco.
This.
The relationship is just an excuse for the board to get rid of the CEO. If the board of a company is happy with its CEO, they’ll turn a blind eye to company policy violations.
Work contracts contain large sections of clauses on trivial matters that employees violates on a daily basis. They’re only enforced when the company wishes somebody to resign.
Some readers here seem not to unterstand, that there are only three reasons to downvote a comment: inaccurate, troll and offtopic.
Just having a different opinion is no valid reason!
This behavior makes valid contributions disappear.
Maybe it would be good to show WHO voted and for what reason.
I wonder why we haven’t heard Bill Gates speaking out on how inappropriate the behavior was?