Following the massive Google Walkout event, where more than 20,000 protesters caused unrest against sexual harassment cases at Google, the company has now changed its policies regarding sexual harassment and abuse.
Along with the release of an email from CEO Sundar Pichai to employees, the company released a lengthy PDF titled “Our Commitments and Actions.” The three-page document outlines new steps Google has taken to add “additional transparency to how it handles issues.”
“We recognize that we haven’t always acted in the right way in the past, and we sincerely regret that. It’s clear that we need to make some changes,” Sunder Pichai said in a blog post.
Sundar Pichai assured that there will be “more attention around sexual harassment investigations.”.
Google is also updating its rules for mandatory sexual harassment training. For those who don't participate in the training, the company will begin lowering performance review scores.
Most of the changes Google made are actually demands of the Google Walkout protesters who reportedly met with Sundar Pichai. Meredith Whittaker, one of the protest organizers and co-director of the AI Now Institute, congratulated everyone in a tweet.
Since the start of the #MeToo campaign, which spread across the world, people have become more vocal about sexual harassment and assault in various workplaces.
The Google employee walkout was the direct result of a report by the NY Times, according to which Google paid a huge sum of $90 million to Android creator Andy Rubin, even though he had been accused of sexual harassment by a Google colleague.
