Google workers getting the messages
Employee-run list offers way to express concerns, bypass HR
At most companies, if you think you’ve witnessed sexual harassment, sexism, bigotry or racism, there’s one way to get it addressed: going to human resources. At Google, there’s another way to air your grievance: submitting your complaint to an employee-run message board.
The list that comes out of those messages, called “Yes, at Google,” is a grassroots effort to collect anonymous submissions at Google and parent Alphabet and communicate them across the Mountain View company, according to five employees who receive the list. It tracks allegations of unwelcome behavior at work in an attempt to make the company more inclusive, said the employees, who did not want to be named because they were not authorized to speak about internal company matters. Since starting in October, more than 15,000 employees — 20 percent of the workforce — have subscribed, according to two of those people.
Management is aware of the list. “We work really hard to promote and preserve a culture of respect and inclusion,” a Google representative 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.”
The list is run by workers from different areas of the company, according to a person familiar with it, though it’s not clear who runs the list and whether the submissions are vetted.
Usually the people in the complaints are not named, though one submission described an instance when, during a large company meeting in late April, Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt allegedly interrupted Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat when she had a question addressed to her, which the post categorized as a “gender-related” complaint. A person who attended the meeting said Schmidt answered the question to make a joke. Messages sometimes include job titles and other details.
Google, along with other tech companies, is facing growing pressure from diversity advocates and the media to change the gender and racial makeup of its workforce, which is largely white and Asian men. But inside company walls, employees are also speaking up about what they see as unfair treatment. The weekly email — whose title is meant to suggest that yes, these things happen at Google, even if you don’t see them — is one way employees are pushing for awareness and change.
Google management doesn’t control or influence the content, though the list’s organizers sometimes ask teams or particular employees to respond to an item before publication. Executives have touted the list internally as a way that Google is trying to make its workplace welcome to all kinds of employees.
In February, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler wrote a widely read blog post detailing alleged sexual harassment and other mistreatment at Uber (in response to Fowler’s allegations, Uber is conducting an internal investigation into its workplace culture). After her post, a group of Google vice presidents sent staff an email that listed resources that might help prevent similar things happening at Google. “Yes, at Google” was included as a resource.
A dispatch from early May listed dozens of alleged incidents. One person reported a manager to HR for allegedly “joking about raping one of his direct reports,” the email said. “He was promoted.”
Another allegation: “A colleague started a meeting off by making a joke that called a woman in the adjacent meeting room ‘some random bitch.’ ”
In another, a writer alleges that a new employee was invited by an engineer to get drinks with colleagues off campus. It was her second week of work. “Upon arriving, discovered there was no group,” the email said. “Subsequently informed by the engineer that she was expected to ‘sleep with everyone’ because that’s the culture here.” The message was accompanied by a note that urged anyone who knows of the identity of the people involved or the time and place it occurred to share it with the company, “so we can look into this matter and address it appropriately.”
A list like “Yes, at Google” introduces business risks, said Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. If a submission were proven libelous, that could be a legal complication for the company. And having a fifth of a company’s workforce reading a weekly collection of complaints could amplify discontent among employees, he said.
In 2014, Google became one of the first high-profile tech companies to release employee diversity figures. The company’s proportions have not improved much in three years — 81 percent of its technical staff is male, as of last year, and less than 6 percent are races other than Asian or white. Google runs implicit bias training designed to address some of the subtle forms of prejudice that persist inside workplaces.
Google is under investigation by the Department of Labor for alleged systemic pay discrimination against its female employees. Google denied the allegations and said that its yearly analysis of pay across men and women found no gender pay gap.
The newsletter is less than 8 months old but has picked up subscribers and interest in the past few months as other companies have faced more public allegations of sexual harassment. Google also faced criticism in February when Uber said it asked for the resignation of Amit Singhal, a senior executive, after learning that he was the subject of a sexual harassment claim when he worked at Google. Singhal denied the allegation.
Not all the complaints in the mailing list include allegations of misconduct such as sexual harassment. Other entries allege workplace comments that might not be obviously offensive to everyone but made some workers uncomfortable, said the current employees.
One submission cites a comment someone wrote in an internal referral that a job candidate “is definite (sic) one of the smartest girls I’ve met.” Another: “Co-worker to me: ‘You know why the schools in Pleasanton are so good, right? Because of all the Chinese people.’ ” One employee said that the hairdressers who work at the Google campus sometimes say, “I’ve never encountered hair like yours before,” which the employee said “comes across as code for ‘I’m not trained to cut the hair of people of your race.’ ”
The mailing list also includes actions or changes that employees found praiseworthy. The updated drinks menu at weekly all-hands meetings include more nonalcoholic beverages, and the men’s restrooms in the San Francisco offices have menstruation products to accommodate transgender men who have periods. When some employees outside the U.S. found a YouTube data tool’s name offensive, it was quickly changed.
Cappelli, the management professor, said that despite the risks that such a list poses, a collection of complaints from workers is valuable for management — especially about sensitive topics that employees may be reluctant to talk about. Keeping an eye on a list similar to Google’s “could be a pretty smart thing for an employer to do,” he said. “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.”