Uber CEO reveals details on sexual harassment investigation
A former Uber engineer’s blog post that blew up online did more than just shame the company into finally investigating her long-ignored sexual harassment allegations. It has also forced the ride-sharing service to take a look at its diversity numbers. In a memo sent out to employees earlier, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has revealed that he and new Chief HR Officer Liane Hornsey are working on publishing the company’s first diversity report in the next few months. While diversity reports are common in the tech industry, it’s out of the norm for Uber, which is still a private entity.
The decision was most likely made in response to part of Susan Fowler’s (that’s the name of the former engineer) post that talked about the service’s gender balance issues. She said “out of over 150 engineers in the [site reliability engineer] teams, only 3 percent were women.” Kalanick insisted in his memo, however, that Uber’s gender balance issues aren’t that bad. He said 15.1 percent of the company’s employees are women. “As points of reference,” he added, “Facebook is at 17 percent, Google at 18 percent and Twitter is at 10 percent.”
In addition to diversity numbers, Kalanick also talked about the ongoing investigation. Apparently, former US Attorney General Eric Holder and another partner at his law firm will conduct an independent review into “the specific issues relating to the work place environment” that Fowler raised. Uber board member Arianna Huffington and Liane Hornsey are also planning group and one-on-one sessions with employees. You can read the whole company-wide memo below:
here is Travis Kalanick’s company wide email to Uber employees, sent Monday afternoon, regarding Fowler’s claims and HR investigation. pic.twitter.com/39PYrKr6SR
— ಠ_ಠ(@MikeIsaac) February 20, 2017
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