Workplace romance can be a tricky topic.
(Music) [The Way We Work] How do we manage the boundaries between our personal and professional lives?
How do we deal with gender imbalances and power dynamics in the workplace?
There's a lot of gray area in workplace romance.
I'd like to take a few minutes and answer some of your frequently asked questions.
So, question one: Should I date my coworker?
Uh ... it depends.
Do you want to date your coworker for a bit of fun?
Do you want to date your coworker to hook up?
Because then you're really better off on Tinder.
If you want to date your coworker because you really, sincerely think you're falling in love with them or there's a real potential for a long-term, committed relationship, maybe you should date your coworker.
Studies show that your coworkers are generally positive about it if they perceive that you're falling in love and genuinely care about each other.
It's when your coworkers sense that something else is in play -- that can be disruptive.
Question two: Should I date my boss?
In almost all cases, no, you should not date your boss, because now, you've got a power dynamic.
When there's a relationship between a boss and a subordinate, it generates a lot of negative feelings, and the negative feelings tend to fall on the person who's lower on the totem pole.
People usually assume some kind of favoritism, some kind of inside knowledge, and there can be resentment stirred up by that.
There was a study published last year that suggested dating a superior can even have a negative impact on your career.
The researchers asked third-party evaluators online to imagine that they worked at a law firm.
They asked them to make recommendations on which employee should get picked for a special training program and which should get promoted to partner.
They looked at credentials for imaginary employees, and when it was stated that an employee had been dating or was in a relationship with a superior, the evaluators were less likely to pick that person for the training program or the promotion, even if they had the exact same credentials as someone who wasn't dating their boss.
The evaluators were also quick to dismiss their accomplishments.
Question three: Can I date someone who reports to me?
Still a big no.
You may not feel like you're really the boss, right?
But you are, and there's a power dynamic there that's simply not there for other couples.
If you really believe there is a sincere, honestly felt, personal connection that would be lasting and meaningful, one of you may need to move, and it shouldn't always be the person who's lower in the company pecking order.
Question four: I've just started seeing a coworker.
How do we handle things?
I get this question a lot.
"Are they dating?
Are they not dating?"
Don't keep it a secret.
You don't have to make a big deal of it, but secrecy tends to be corrosive.
People tend to see workplace couples as a coalition or a unit, so try to make it clear to your coworkers that you're not the same person; you love each other, but you are going to disagree.
Question five: Why are coworkers often attracted to each other?
Well, the obvious answer is people tend to be attracted to each other the more time they spend together.
But there's another ingredient that has to be added: attraction tends to happen when there's work that demands close collaboration.
So imagine you have a big group project with a tight deadline and you're working late nights and brainstorming ideas.
You look up, and across the table, one of your colleagues throws out a really great idea.
You may feel something, and that's natural.
We call this task interdependence.
It's a ripe ground for attraction.
The second reason why people at work are attracted to each other is they may often be similar to each other.
There's two old adages: "Birds of a feather flock together."
And "Opposites attract."
Well, the psychological research suggests ...
birds of a feather flock together, and we like people who are like us.
Question six: My coworkers are flirting.
I'm annoyed.
What do I do?
Some researchers argue that for people flirting at work, flirting is good and it boosts creativity.
But my own research suggests things are different for people who are watching or who are subjected to the flirting.
It can be awkward, right?
Witnessing flirtation in the workplace creates a sense of not knowing the rules, not knowing what's going on, or maybe seeing something that you shouldn't be seeing.
People who frequently witness flirting at work -- they actually report feeling less satisfied in their jobs, and they feel less valued by their company.
They're more likely to give a negative appraisal of the work environment, and they may even consider leaving.
For women, this association can be even stronger.
This appears to be the case even when people report not being bothered by the flirting.
It's true even when they say they enjoy it.
So, a flirtatious environment really could be toxic.
Question seven: Do I need a policy on workplace relationships?
You certainly need a policy on a sexual harassment, and I think most HR departments recognize that.
But for the kind of consensual behavior we've been talking about, it's a little different.
As much as people in HR would love to wave a magic wand and say, "Thou shall not fall in love at work," it's just not realistic.
Emotional connection and sexuality is who we are.
I kind of want you to flip the script a little bit.
I encourage HR to really think more broadly about their role in not necessarily stamping out office romance, because I don't think that's realistic, but how do I help create a workplace climate and culture where people feel respected for their individual contributions, not for their appearance or their gender, or their personal relationships?
So the larger question is, how do you make sure people are valued and respected?
I was only four years old when I saw my mother load a washing machine for the very first time in her life.
That was a great day for my mother.
My mother and father had been saving money for years to be able to buy that machine, and the first day it was going to be used, even Grandma was invited to see the machine.
(Laughter) And Grandma was even more excited.
Throughout her life, she had been heating water with firewood, and she had hand-washed laundry for seven children.
And now, she was going to watch electricity do that work.
My mother carefully opened the door, and she loaded the laundry into the machine, like this.
And then, when she closed the door, Grandma said, "No, no, no, no!
Let me!
Let me push the button!"
(Laughter) And Grandma pushed the button, and she said, "Oh, fantastic!
I want to see this!
Give me a chair!
Give me a chair!
I want to see it," and she sat down in front of the machine, and she watched the entire washing program.
(Laughter) She was mesmerized.
To my grandmother, the washing machine was a miracle.
Today, in Sweden and other rich countries, people are using so many different machines.
Look -- the homes are full of machines.
I can't even name them all.
And they also, when they want to travel, they use flying machines that can take them to remote destinations.
And yet, in the world, there are so many people who still heat the water on fire, and they cook their food on fire.
Sometimes they don't even have enough food.
And they live below the poverty line.
There are two billion fellow human beings who live on less than two dollars a day.
And the richest people over there -- there's one billion people, and they live above what I call the "air line" -- (Laughter) because they spend more than 80 dollars a day on their consumption.
But this is just one, two, three billion people, and obviously, there are seven billion people in the world, so there must be one, two, three, four billion people more who live in between the poverty and the air line.
They have electricity, but the question is: How many have washing machines?
I've done the scrutiny of market data, and I've found that, indeed, the washing machine has penetrated below the air line, and today, there's an additional one billion people out there who live above the "wash line."
(Laughter) And they consume for more than 40 dollars per day.
So two billion have access to washing machines.
And the remaining five billion -- how do they wash?
Or, to be more precise, how do most of the women in the world wash?
Because it remains the hard work for women to wash.
They wash like this: by hand.
It's hard, time-consuming labor, which they have to do for hours every week.
And sometimes they also have to bring water from far away to do the laundry at home, or they have to bring the laundry away to a stream far off.
And they want the washing machine.
They don't want to spend such a large part of their life doing this hard work with so relatively low productivity.
And there's nothing different in their wish than it was for my grandma.
Look here, two generations ago in Sweden -- picking water from the stream, heating with firewood and washing like that.
They want the washing machine in exactly the same way.
But when I lecture to environmentally concerned students, they tell me, "No, everybody in the world cannot have cars and washing machines."
How can we tell this woman that she isn't going to have a washing machine?
And then I ask my students -- over the last two years, I've asked -- "How many of you don't use a car?"
And some of them proudly raise their hand and say, "I don't use a car."
And then I put the really tough question: "How many of you hand-wash your jeans and your bedsheets?"
And no one raised their hand.
Even the hardcore in the green movement use washing machines.
(Laughter) So how come [this is] something that everyone uses and they think others will not stop it?
What is special with this?
I had to do an analysis about the energy use in the world.
Here we are.
Look here.
You see the seven billion people up there?
The air people, the wash people, the bulb people and the fire people.
One unit like this is an energy unit of fossil fuel -- oil, coal or gas.
That's what most of the electricity and the energy in the world is.
And it's 12 units used in the entire world, and the richest one billion, they use six of them.
Half of the energy is used by one seventh of the world population.
And these ones, who have washing machines but not a house full of other machines, they use two.
This group uses three, one each.
And they also have electricity.
And over there, they don't even use one each.
That makes 12 of them.
But the main concern for the environmentally interested students -- and they are right -- is about the future.
What are the trends?
If we just prolong the trends, without any real advanced analysis, to 2050, there are two things that can increase the energy use: first, population growth; second, economic growth.
Population growth will mainly occur among the poorest people here, because they have high child mortality and they have many children per woman.
And that will get you two extra, but that won't change the energy use very much.
What will happen is economic growth.
The best of here in the emerging economies -- I call them "the New East" -- they will jump the air line.
"Wopp!" they will say.
And they will start to use as much as the Old West are doing already.
(Laughter) And these people, they want the washing machine.
I told you.
They'll go there.
And they will double their energy use.
And we hope that the poor people will get into the electric light.
And they'll get a two-child family without a stop in population growth.
But the total energy consumption will increase to 22 units.
And these 22 units -- still, the richest people use most of them.
So what needs to be done?
Because the risk, the high probability of climate change is real.
It's real.
Of course, they must be more energy efficient.
They must change their behavior in some way.
They must also start to produce green energy, much more green energy.
But until they have the same energy consumption per person, they shouldn't give advice to others -- what to do and what not to do.
(Laughter) (Applause) Here, we can get more green energy all over.
This is what we hope might happen.
It's a real challenge in the future.
But I can assure you that this woman in the favela in Rio, she wants a washing machine.
She's very happy about her minister of energy that provided electricity to everyone -- so happy that she even voted for her.
And she became Dilma Rousseff, the president-elect of one of the biggest democracies in the world, moving from minister of energy to president.
If you have democracy, people will vote for washing machines.
They love them!
(Laughter) And what's the magic with them?
My mother explained the magic with this machine the very, very first day.
She said, "Now, Hans.
We have loaded the laundry.
The machine will make the work.
And now we can go to the library."
Because this is the magic: you load the laundry, and what do you get out of the machine?
You get books out of the machines, children's books.
And mother got time to read for me.
She loved this.
I got the "ABC's" -- this is why I started my career as a professor, when my mother had time to read for me.
And she also got books for herself.
She managed to study English and learn that as a foreign language.
And she read so many novels, so many different novels here.
And we really, we really loved this machine.
(Laughter) And what we said, my mother and me, "Thank you, industrialization.
Thank you, steel mill.
Thank you, power station.
And thank you, chemical processing industry that gave us time to read books."
Thank you very much.
(Laughter) (Applause)
A few years ago, I got a call from the highest ranking legal official in the state of Georgia: the attorney general.
That moment was a wake-up call.
It was 2013, and the city of Atlanta was hosting the Final Four basketball tournament.
The AG called to ask if the company that I worked for could help sponsor billboards that would be put up around the city as part of an anti-human trafficking campaign.
He said this was important because sex trafficking spikes with big sporting events and with conventions.
And the billboards would help to raise awareness.
Now, if I'm being honest with you, my first inclination was to politely decline.
(Laughter) Let's face it -- there are thousands of things that corporate America could get involved in.
Sex trafficking seemed a little messy.
Little bit too difficult, something that is better left for someone else.
But then I started to understand and learn how big the problem really is.
And that it's rampant in my company's home town.
I lived and worked in Atlanta for years.
I practice law here.
And yet, I had no idea that the birthplace of my children is among the most prevalent cities for sex trafficking in the US.
At last report, Atlanta's illegal sex trade has generated up to 290 million dollars a year.
That's more money that the city's illegal gun and drug trade combined.
So we stepped up and we helped with the billboards.
But I couldn't help feeling like it wasn't enough.
The parent in me, the mother in me needed to do more.
I started talking to people about this and inevitably, I was surprised, because the conversation would turn from curiosity: "Really?
This happens here?"
to empathy: "Wow, we've got to do something about that."
To blame: "You're not telling me that every prostitute is a victim, are you?
I mean, don't they know what they're getting into?"
I get it, I understand why people are confused.
So, to be clear, the people that I'm talking about do not choose this life.
They're forced, defrauded or coerced.
That's actually the legal definition for human trafficking under federal law, for adults.
Now, when it comes to kids, any minor under 18 that's transported, facilitated or used for commercial sex, is automatically a victim.
Regardless of whether force, fraud or coercion is used.
This crime knows no age, gender or socioeconomic barrier.
I'm talking about the 16-year-old girl that I met in Washington, DC.
She had been trafficked from the time she was 14 until she was 16.
She was a victim of the foster care system.
And she told me she'd been sold up to five times a day.
She didn't even know the term "human trafficking;" she thought that it was just a part of her life as a foster care kid.
Sex trafficking also shows up in affluent areas and gated communities.
And men lure young girls into sex trafficking situations with promises of modeling contracts, cell phones.
Sometimes they're just kidnapped right off the street.
In the US, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 girls and boys are anticipated to be used for commercial sex trafficking every year.
You heard that right -- girls and boys.
Worldwide, the International Labor Organization estimates that up to one million children a year are vulnerable for sex trafficking.
Those numbers are huge.
And so while the billboards are great for raising awareness generally, they're just not enough to put an end to this problem.
I believe that if we're going to be serious about sex trafficking, we can't legislate or arrest our way out of modern-day slavery.
If we really want to end sex trafficking in the US, we have to systematically educate and target demand.
And I think the business community is in the perfect position to do just that.
So, sex trafficking is big business.
And I'm proposing a business plan that starts with the customer.
And in the sex trade, the customer is referred to as a John.
He is the man that fuels the demand for sex trafficking.
Johns do not fit into neat stereotypes.
But there is one universal truth: no John, no buyer, no victim.
So if we want to start to put a dent in sex trafficking, we have to get to John.
And businesses can do that while bensonnicole@example.net.
There's an organization called Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking, or BEST for short.
And when they launched in 2012, they did a study of Seattle-based Johns.
And you know what they found out?
Johns are everyday guys, employed at local businesses.
They range in age from 18 to 84.
Johns are dads.
Johns have admitted that they buy sex when they are traveling for business, when they're going to sporting events or when they're in the military.
But here's the kicker.
BEST study determined that web-based sex buying spikes at 2pm in the afternoon.
Which means that these Johns are likely buying sex in the middle of the workday.
I believe that there is a way to stop Johns in the middle of the workday from buying sex.
And businesses can do it in three simple ways.
The first is with a policy.
A policy that clearly says, the company prohibits sex-buying during work, with company resources or on company time.
That's right.
I'm saying that your handbook has to specifically give an example that says no sex-buying while you're traveling, at the international trade show, because that's where it's happening.
Now, a policy is only as good as its enforcement and its communication.
Several studies have indicated from Johns that the best way to deter them is public humiliation and embarrassment.
So, businesses who catch Johns buying sex, using company-based equipment or company resources, but cut them a break or sweep it under the rug and don't fire them, are complicit in fueling demand.
Now, a policy is one of the best ways to start.
The second way is educating the workforce.
Businesses can go a long way in simply training their workforce about the signs and the red flags of human trafficking.
This was my "aha!" moment for how our company could make a big difference.
Our nation's highways, airports and truck stops are literally used as modern-day slave routes.
Our company has more than 100,000 drivers all over the country, all over the world.
And so it made perfect sense to train them to see the red flags.
We don't want them jumping out there and doing things on their own, so we want them to call a phone number, the hotline, and let law enforcement intervene.
So to do this, we teamed up with an organization called Truckers Against Trafficking.
This Colorado-based organization had web-based support and materials that we gave to our truck drivers that gave them exactly what they needed to spot the red flags.
Like, hearing CB chatter on their radios about girls at nearby exits.
Or, seeing underaged women emerging from vehicles in the truck stop parking lots.
When we rolled out this training, a few brave drivers admitted they had seen these women, knocking on the cabs in the truck stops, looking for customers.
Now, they said that they weren't buying.
But they also didn't know enough to make a call.
And that's what we want them to do.
TAT's organization -- Truckers Against Trafficking -- also emphasizes the need for men to talk to other men about web-based sex buying and not buying commercial sex.
They feature men in uniform, proudly proclaiming why they don't buy.
If we're going to see a cultural shift in this atrocity, we need men talking to other men about the underlying issues fueling demand.
Because sometimes, Johns don't even know that they're purchasing girls who are enslaved.
Which brings me to my final way that businesses can help.
Every business has a special resource or a secret sauce or resource that they can bring to fight human trafficking.
For example, Visa, Master Card and American Express refuse to process transactions from backpage.com, an online sex site that sold commercial sex to the tune of nine million dollars a month.
In April of 2018, backpage.com and affiliated websites were shut down, and the FBI seized all their assets.
Hiring survivors is another way that any company can help.
Randstad, an organization that works with companies to find survivors who need good jobs, has an excellent program, called Hire Hope.
We've used this program; we know that it works.
In addition to training their flight attendants and their airline crew, Delta Air Lines also offers SkyMiles, through a program called SkyWish, to survivors to help them escape their traffickers and reunite with their families.
There are thousands of things that businesses can do.
They just have to decide what to do to join the fight.
No one can justify slavery today.
But I believe it remains one of the greatest civil rights atrocities of our time.
Fortunately, the business community is uniquely positioned to help train their employees, to enforce policies and to help use their special resources to fight human trafficking.
And what about you?
What if you decided to learn the red flags?
What if you decided to look at the signs that are all around you and make a call?
There is no penalty for calling law enforcement when you see something that doesn't sit right.
Together, we can all protect our children, we can educate the workforces around us and improve society, where we all live and work with John.
Thank you.
(Applause)