What a time to work at Google.
On the same day the company revealed its third-quarter earnings, a bombshell report (paywall) from The New York Times revealed that the search giant has a history of keeping sexual harassments allegations against top executives quiet. Most notably, the company reportedly gave Android founder Andy Rubin a $90 million exit package in 2014, despite finding sexual-misconduct claims against him to be “credible.”
In response, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and VP of people operations Eileen Naughton sent out a statement to all Google employees on Thursday. It says, among other things, that ”in the last two years, 48 people have been terminated for sexual harassment, including 13 who were senior managers and above.”
You can read the full letter below.
From: Sundar
Hi everyone,
Today’s story in the New York Times was difficult to read.
We are dead serious about making sure we provide a safe and inclusive workplace. We want to assure you that we review every single complaint about sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct, we investigate and we take action.
In recent years, we’ve made a number of changes, including taking an increasingly hard line on inappropriate conduct by people in positions of authority: in the last two years, 48 people have been terminated for sexual harassment, including 13 who were senior managers and above. None of these individuals received an exit package.
In 2015, we launched Respect@ and our annual Internal Investigations Report to provide transparency about these types of investigations at Google. Because we know that reporting harassment can be traumatic, we provide confidential channels to share any inappropriate behavior you experience or see. We support and respect those who have spoken out. You can find many ways to do this at go/saysomething. You can make a report anonymously if you wish.
We’ve also updated our policy to require all VPs and SVPs to disclose any relationship with a co-worker regardless of reporting line or presence of conflict.
We are committed to ensuring that Google is a workplace where you can feel safe to do your best work, and where there are serious consequences for anyone who behaves inappropriately.
Sundar and Eileen