Google: More Personnel Excitement

June 1, 2021

I am not too keen on what used to be called human resources. I am not sure I liked being a “resource” like sand or lignite. I once wrote a report about “sherm”. Was I surprised. The “word” was the way personnel professionals pronounced the estimable trade association Society for Human Resource Management. SHRM became sherm to those in the know. I did the report; got paid; and decided to not think about personnel again. Until I read “Over 10,000 Women Are Suing Google over Gender Pay Disparity.” Now that’s a personnel story which is almost up to the level of the Timnit Gebru matter.

According to the write up:

Four women who worked at Google have won class-action status to proceed with their gender pay disparity lawsuit, reports Bloomberg. The latest ruling in the protracted legal battle means the suit can now apply to 10,800 women who held various positions at the tech giant since 2013. Those affected represent a broad cross-section of vocations including engineers, program managers, salespeople and at least one preschool teacher. The women, who are seeking more than $600 million in damages, allege Google violated the California Equal Pay Act by paying them less than their male counterparts, promoting them slowly and less frequently.

I have used the phrase “high school science club management methods” or HSSCMM or H2SC2M to capture the approach some Google managers take to the personnel thing. If the information in the article is accurate, it would appear that Google had institutionalized pay disparity. That’s something my high school science club would have done for sure.

My thought is that Alphabet Google may want to check out the information on the SHRM Web site. I clicked on the Compensation tab and spotted a number of articles about employee pay. There’s an entry for “Using AI in Comp Decisions? Here’s How to Build Trust.” That write up seems germane. It mentions artificial intelligence, and based on the recent Google conference, smart software is a big deal at the Google. The write up mentions “trust.” That’s important when visiting via Google’s Zoom clone with prospective female hires at big time universities.

Perhaps Google should pull up roots and relocate to a country which does not fiddle around with the equality notion? Can a high school science club just pick up and head to such a place? Sure. High school science thinkers (regardless of age) can come up with absolutely brilliant solutions that seem logical to them. Example: Buying Motorola, Orkut, solving death, etc.

It’s sherm. Remember when you sign up for an online equality in compensation course. Sherm and 657175616c697479.

Stephen E Arnold, May 28, 2021

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