Topic: HR
Uber’s HR Head Disingenuously Downplays Harassment and Discrimination Issues (May 25, 2017)
In what’s really not a great sign ahead of the release of Uber’s “independent” investigation into its workplace culture, it’s HR head has said she has found that discrimination and harassment really weren’t major issues internally relative to other employee concerns. That doesn’t really answer several other questions including whether they are issues at all, and whether perhaps employees don’t feel comfortable sharing their real feelings with internal management for all the reasons others have said. It’s still possible that the investigation will reach different conclusions, but this quote feels tone deaf and designed – as with past comments from board member Arianna Huffington – to get the retaliation in first. That doesn’t seem likely to be successful: the reaction I’ve seen on Twitter today to the quotes in the piece has been very negative.
via USA Today
Apple Shifts HR Head to Diversity Role, Reporting to Tim Cook (May 23, 2017)
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Amazon launches Pivot a new training program to help employees in danger of being fired – Business Insider (Jan 19, 2017)
Amazon has gained a reputation over time for treating its employees poorly – the New York Times famously did an in-depth investigate piece on this topic as it relates to Amazon’s white collar employees, and it talked about Amazon’s Performance Improvement Plan for underperforming employees. This article talks about a new program intended to benefit those placed on a PIP by helping them develop their skills, and can be seen as an effort by Amazon to help those with poor evaluations rather than merely taking the first steps towards an eventual dismissal for cause. The PIP process was far from the only element of working in a white collar job at Amazon that the New York Times wrote about, and of course Amazon pushed back against some of the other allegations in the report. And then there are the working conditions in blue collar jobs at Amazon’s warehouses and fulfillment centers. So this is part of changing the narrative, but only really addresses one small piece of it.