Nationwide Grieving a Child & a Court Win

What a week Nationwide Insurance has been having! They have a successful Super Bowl ad, and another that, was well not so successful. They won an appeal that went to the Supreme Court, but the court of public opinion, at least on the Internet, has been having a different view of the case. I wonder what is going on behind the closed doors of the company. I bet they are going through the stages of grief.

The court decision was the finding for a sex discrimination lawsuit filed by a woman who, according to the articles I read, here and here just returned from maternity leave and required to use a breast pump. Based on what I have read so far, she was not permitted to use the lactation room because it would take 3 days to process the paperwork, something she was not informed of prior to returning to work. While waiting to use a different more public area to pump, her supervisor came to her desk, and allegedly stated that she would have to complete all the work she missed while she was out, and she would have two week to do it. She then went to the department head to seek help in gaining access to a private room to pump, and according to what I have read, was told that she should go home to be with [her] babies. He then dictated a letter of resignation to her. The lower court found that she did not take enough steps to complain internally prior to resigning. The lower court also did not consider this experience to be sex discrimination, partially because men can lactate too. They did not find the statement “just go home and be with your babies” to be sex discrimination. As I have stated I have not fully read the case, I am trying to summarize what I have read on the topic thus far. The Supreme Court declined the appeal leaving the lower court ruling to stand.

Since the decision became known, tweets started flying stating things like "So this week alone, Nationwide has killed a child and made it harder for woman to feed their children." So if you are Nationwide what do you do now? First of all I hope there is more to the court case that I have not read yet, because even if the situation is legally defensible, I am not sure Nationwide will have a shot in the court of public opinion. If there is more to the story, I would encourage Nationwide to point out the facts that may be different than what the public has heard thus far. If the facts are not, I am shocked that Nationwide would fight this case all the way to the Supreme Court because ultimately they will lose even if they win. I have seen many employees sharing their positive stories of the company's support for women on Facebook, but I am not sure if that will ever be enough to overcome what I have read. The company may want to consider offering a settlement to the plaintiff, even though they already won. They could consider making a donation to a breastfeeding charity, but again this will be a very difficult issue to overcome.

Personally, I am vested more than ever regarding the company's commercial. Since my original post on the topic, people have shared hundreds of stories with me regarding grieving parents and children unexpectedly witnessing the commercial and the pain it has caused them, as well as the family and friends they were with. For those of us who have suffered through a major loss, we know the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression & acceptance. For many of us the ad brought us back to depression, and based on the company's response, I will admit I was taken back to anger. I have worked on this post for a few days, and other variations wanted to hurt the company, their leaders, including their board of directors. Today I feel for them in a different way.

As the ad played, the Internet started grieving in the same manner. At first it was shock over the ad; "I can't believe they played this ad during the Super Bowl." Then came anger (and boy did it come out). Even watching the company's response you can see the same stages. At first they had denial stating they expected the response, then they changed to state that they were surprised at the level of vitriol but "if it saved on child." I am sure the company wants to hold onto their original intent, just as many of us wanted to continue to hold onto the child we lost. The company has to find the way to acceptance and apologize for the pain they have caused. People that have been through this are actually much more understanding and can even help the company, but the slow reaction will hurt any possibility that this group will help the company move forward in any way.

In these two situations impacting Nationwide this week, I feel sorry for the hard working employees and agents for the company. They are the ones who often have to deal with the ramifications of the decisions of the company's leadership team. I also feel sorry for the child in the ad, whose image is now posted to some memes that I am sure will impact him for years to come. It is really sad that no one saw these issues before this ad was aired.

Companies need to make sure they are listening, and truly understanding where people are coming from. We are tired of all the negativity and pessimism. Instead we want to find an optimistic world in front of us. As a society we can work together to create this world, but we have to understand each other in a much deeper fashion than we do today. Nationwide Insurance, specifically CEO Mr Rasmussen, we are looking at you to step it up and do the right things. We hope you can understand and relate to this, but it is always difficult to relate to someone who has lost a child.