A group of Google employees have launched an anonymous message board and weekly email designed to call out bad behavior at the company.
Since launching in October, “Yes, at Google” has gained more than 15,000 subscribers, roughly 20 percent of the workforce, Bloomberg reports.
Complaints in a recent email digest include: A manager who joked about raping one of his direct reports, a new Googler who was pressured by an engineer to have sex with him, and a male Googler who drank too much at an offsite event and touched multiple female colleagues inappropriately. In that third case, the employee was reportedly fired.
Although the message board and weekly email aren’t officially sanctioned by Google, executives are aware of it, and have previously encouraged employees to use it as a resource if they want to highlight behavior at the company they feel should be changed, Bloomberg reports.
Despite high-profile attempts to hire and retain female and minority employees, eight out of 10 engineers at the company are male. More than 94 percent of it engineers are either white or Asian. Many of the issues “Yes, at Google” calls out are centered around gender and race.
Google has grappled, sometimes publicly, with concerns about its culture. It’s facing a U.S. Department of Labor investigation over claims it systematically pays women less than men. In 2014, the company published the first in a series of reports on employee diversity, opening itself up to outside scrutiny and criticism.
Grassroots projects like “Yes, at Google” provide another outlet for Googlers to discuss their corporate culture internally.
SOURCE: Silicon Valley Business Journal
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