The department which handles any form of harassment is HR. But at Google there’s another way – an employee-run message board.
‘Yes, at Google’ collates anonymous submissions from Google and Alphabet and circulates them companywide, according to five current recipients who work there – Bloomberg reports.
These current recipients do not have the authority to speak to the press about internal company affairs. According to two of the five, over 15,000 members of staff – 20% of their workforce – have signed up since October.
With the lack of diversity in the technology sector an issue, ‘Yes, at Google’ is a method for workers inside to push for change.
Google management has no say on what goes on it (although they are promoting it as an example of how great a place Google is to work at), though teams or specific peoples are occasionally consulted about certain items prior to publishing, a person familiar with the matter said.
Allegations, according to documents seen by Bloomberg earlier this month, include:
- “A colleague started a meeting off by making a joke that called a woman in the adjacent meeting room ‘some random b****.”
- A complaint about Google’s on-campus hairdressers: “[Hairdressers say]: ‘I’ve never encountered hair like yours before’. [This] comes across as code for: ‘I’m not trained to cut the hair of people of your race’.”
- A ‘Noogler’, new Googler, who was asked to go for drinks with an engineer. The email read: “Upon arriving, discovered there was no group. Subsequently informed by the engineer that she was expected to ‘sleep with everyone’ because that’s the culture here.” This was accompanied by a note urging for more information to be shared “so [the Employee Relations Team] can look into this matter and address it appropriately”.
- “A male Googler drank excessively at an offsite event and touched a few different female Googlers in a manner that made them uncomfortable, made inappropriate comments, and followed two women back to their hotel room and told them ‘I’m following you’.” This matter was resolved by Google’s management: “Thanks to Googlers who came forward with information about these incidents, we investigated, substantiated the concerns and terminated the Googler’s employment.”
A Google spokesperson said: “Our employees have numerous ways to raise issues – both negative and positive – with us, including through grassroots transparency efforts like this one. We take concerns seriously and take appropriate measures to address them.”
Peter Cappelli, George W Taylor Professor of Management at The Wharton School and Director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources, believes having a list similar to this “could be a pretty smart thing for an employer to do”.
He explains: “You can find out stuff that’s going on without having to do surveys. Employees don’t necessarily trust hotlines, and they certainly don’t always trust going to their supervisor with problems.”
Source: HR Grapevine
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