When the sun rose over the city of Nairobi on Friday morning, no one expected OPPO Kenya to be trending for the wrong reasons, especially since the company just launched their latest selfie-focused flagship the OPPO F7. As the clock hit noon, a trending hashtag was brewing on Twitter, #ShameOnOPPOKenya.
The tweet that started it all is this one:
https://twitter.com/ItsBravin/status/992340728528429056?s=09
Apparently, OPPO Kenya’s “CEO” was recorded during a phone call verbally harassing an employee. In the leaked audio, the alleged CEO can be heard questioning an employee why certain brand promoters were not terminated as he had instructed earlier. The employee is heard trying to explain that they could not just terminate their contracts without prior notice and that’s when things go south and the “CEO” is heard hurling insults at the employee who, from the conversation, we can tell is at the managerial level. Here’s a transcript of part of the conversation:
Person 1: How many promoters do you have now?
Person 2: Uhm… Mary is preparing ten letters for dismissal, so I am going to remain with 45.
Person 1: How many [do] you have now, currently?
Person 2: Currently, I have 55.
Person 1: Why [do] you still have 55?
Person 2: There’s a message that Mary sent to us, that if you want to fire, we have to give them notice. So the letter is being prepared…
Person 1: Can’t you just fire them right now? F#*^ You! Thursday I call you. On 1st March, I told you to fire them and now you explain to me like this?
Person 2: Mary told me we cannot fire someone like that, we have to give them a dismissal letter
Person 1: They are [on] probation, you can fire them anytime… is it?
Person 2: Okay
Techweez has exclusively obtained information from a reliable source that this is not the first time such levels of disrespect and harassment have been witnessed behind the closed doors of OPPO Kenya offices, we are told, “it’s been happening”.
We reached out to the company to address the issue and they informed us that the matter was under investigation. We have also obtained an unsigned statement from the company that reads in part, “Based on the recording, we have launched an investigation into this matter with a view to ascertaining the facts and institute requisite measures within the confines of our Human Resource Policy and the law.” The company also clarifies that they do not condone such behaviour in the form of race, ethnic, gender or class discrimination.
Despite the recording, there’s still no solid evidence that points out that the said employees both belong to OPPO, we will just have to wait for the company to complete its investigations or at least for one of the victims to come out and speak.
