Google: Ever Flexible, Ever Accommodating to Its Values

July 7, 2019

Is Google taking its workers’ concerns seriously? Business magazine Inc. levels some strong criticism at the company in its piece, “Google Rejected Employees’ Plea to Reform its Sexual Harassment Policy. Here’s Why that Is a Big Mistake.” Sure, Google did make a few changes to its policy after last year’s walkout, but those changes fell short of employee demands. Shareholders attempted to remedy that at their June meeting with a simple proposal:

“RESOLVED, Shareholders request management review its policies related to sexual harassment to assess whether the Company needs to adopt and implement additional policies and to report its findings, omitting proprietary information and prepared at a reasonable expense by December 31, 2019.”

Sounds reasonable to right? Not, apparently, to Google’s board of directors, which recommended against the resolution, or Larry Page or Sergey Brin, who’s “no” votes held the weight of their combined 51% of the vote. (The two cofounders together own only 13% of the stock, but that’s a paradox for another time.) On top of that, company brass demonstrated their disdain for the issue: CEO Sundar Pichai refused to answer questions at the meeting, and neither Page nor Brin even bothered to show up. Writer Suzanne Lucas reproaches the company:

“Rejecting a proposal to assess sexual harassment policies basically states, ‘We’re happy as we are.’ Except, the ‘we’ here includes all employees (and contractors) who aren’t happy. And Alphabet leadership blatantly indicated that they were not interested in listening to the little people. … “When you don’t show up, you don’t answer questions, and the voting is ‘ceremonial’ rather than meaningful, you’re screaming, ‘I don’t care!’ And while businesses exist to make money, you can’t keep a business going with unhappy employees. If you don’t listen to reasonable proposals, you’re not going to keep people happy.”

Indeed. Lucas outlines four components she says make for an effective sexual harassment policy: bright-line rules; investigating each and every claim, preferably through an outside entity if executives are involved; making no exceptions for the most valuable employees; and open reporting within the company (without naming names). See the write-up for details on each of these points.

Will Google change its tune, or will it continue to pretend it does not have a sexual harassment problem? Time’s up. A or B?

Cynthia Murrell, July 7, 2019

Comments

One Response to “Google: Ever Flexible, Ever Accommodating to Its Values”

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