Team17—QA staff paid £16K (below minimum wage) while CEO made $10M; HR dismissed sexual harassment complaints
In 2022, Team17 QA staff reported base pay of £16,000/year (below UK minimum wage), with senior testers earning £19,000 (barely above). Employees reported being unable to 'afford to heat their homes, have 3 meals a day or replace clothes with holes' while CEO Debbie Bestwick made ~$10.24 million and had £200M personal fortune. Women who received 'suggestive and degrading messages and photos from male colleagues' were told by HR to 'handle the issue themselves' or saw perpetrators get 'a slap on the wrist.' One female employee said she feared being 'gaslit' by HR.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| DEI Programs | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| Executive Compensation | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Worker Rights | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.715 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.57)
Evidence (1 signal)
QA staff paid £16K (below minimum wage) while CEO made $10M; HR dismissed sexual harassment complaints
In 2022, Team17 QA staff reported base pay of £16,000/year (below UK minimum wage), with senior testers earning £19,000 (barely above). Employees reported being unable to 'afford to heat their homes, have 3 meals a day or replace clothes with holes' while CEO Debbie Bestwick made ~$10.24 million and had £200M personal fortune. Women who received 'suggestive and degrading messages and photos from male colleagues' were told by HR to 'handle the issue themselves' or saw perpetrators get 'a slap on the wrist.' One female employee said she feared being 'gaslit' by HR.