Google HR boss steps down amid dissension
Naughton will take on a new, unspecified role with company
Google’s head of human relations, Eileen Naughton, is stepping down from her position amid what has been a period of dissension involving many company employees over the changing business culture at the internet giant.
Naughton, who has been with Google for 14 years, will remain at the company in an as-yet undefined role after she officially steps aside later this year. In a statement given to this news organization, Naughton said that she and her husband decided that now is the time for her to “return home to New York to be closer to our family.” Google didn’t immediately name a successor to Naughton, whose official title at the company is vice president of people operations.
Naughton said that she would assist Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai and Chief Financial Officer Ruth
Porat in finding her replacement.
“Eileen has made major contributions to the company in numerous areas, from media partnerships, to leading our sales and operations in the UK and Ireland, to leading our people operations team through a period of significant growth,” Pichai said, in a statement. “We’re grateful to Eileen for all she’s done and look forward to her next chapter at Google.”
While neither Naughton, nor Pichai, addressed any of the employee issues that Google has recently dealt with, her departure as the head of the company human resources chief comes as Google is facing some of the biggest employee upheavals in its history.
In November 2018, more than 20,000 Google employees briefly walked off their jobs to protest the company’s handling of sexual misconduct allegations against some company officials. That walkout was partly in response
to the revelation that Google gave former executive Andy Rubin a $90 million “golden parachute” after he left the company over allegations of
he engaged in sexual misconduct in Google’s workplace.
Google employees have also protested the firing of a handful of employees who engaged in union-related activities, and for other activities that involved giving information to employees
about labor rights. Several of those fired workers have filed unfair labor charges against Google. Google said some of those employees were fired for violating the company’s security policies.
Naughton’s departure from Google’s top executive ranks comes amid what has
also been a period of change among the company’s leadership ranks. In December, Google co-founder Larry Page stepped down from his job at CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, and was replaced by Pichai, who is also Google’s CEO. And David Drummond retired from his job at the company’s chief legal officer in January, several months after a former Google engineer reported details of a multi-year relationship she said she had with Drummond.