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A note to our employees

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Re: A note to our employees

#81

Post by AlwaysRock »

commandlinefan wrote: post #58
shmel wrote: post #16

Mandatory sexual harassment training sounds quite disturbing. Anybody can comment in detail how it is conducted? Is it really mandatory for everyone or only for men?

> or only for men If it's anything like everywhere I've ever worked, it's mandatory for everybody, and they go out of their way to pretend their not just talking to the men about the women, but it's actually twice as uncomfortable because all of the women - for whom this training is actually for - are sitting next to the men, for whom the training is actually targeted. So you sit through an hour of uncomfortable filt…

There may be more men harassing women but you are writing off every male who has been sexually harassed at their workplace with your comment. Additionally you are spreading the idea that sexual harassment is only done by males to females which is incredibly harmful and short sighted.

Re: A note to our employees

#83

Post by ummonk »

whtswrong wrote: post #75
fmitchell0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious response: Framing it as an 'Or' implies the two are mutually exclusive. They are not. Diversity is fact. The world is diverse in a variety of ways (skin, eyes, experiences, gender, language, nationality, etc.). Inclusion is the action. Equity is the goal. In the OKR framework, being able to measure your progress towards the goal is important. The real question is, which aspects of people who work for your com…

> The world is diverse in a variety of ways (skin, eyes, experiences, gender, language, nationality, etc.) And yet time and time again we'll see images of a workforce of predominantly white males and someone will claim "no diversity", as if having white skin and a penis makes you the same as the next guy.

Or more accurately white, chinese, and indian males.

Re: A note to our employees

#84

Post by dominotw »

ericabiz wrote: post #48

One of the more interesting pieces is buried in the linked PDF: "Excessive alcohol: Harassment is never acceptable and alcohol is never an excuse. But one of the most common factors among the harassment complaints made today at Google is that the perpetrator had been drinking (~20% of cases). Our policy is clear: Excessive consumption of alcohol is not permitted when you are at work, performing Google business, or at…

> ~20% of cases

What are the other factors. Are there any higher than 20%.

Re: A note to our employees

#85

Post by lucozade »

knl wrote: post #63

I'm not a native speaker, but doesn't "We will update and expand our mandatory sexual harassment training" mean that trainings teach how to do sexual harassment, not prevent it? Shouldn't it be "prevention of sexual harassment"?

The English construct is ambiguous but the meaning isn't so the usage is fine. In fact, adding "prevention of" or similar would imply that you had the other sort of sexual harassment training.

And there would be no shortage of wags on the Internet to point that out.

Re: A note to our employees

#86

Post by gnulinux »

ericabiz wrote: post #48

One of the more interesting pieces is buried in the linked PDF: "Excessive alcohol: Harassment is never acceptable and alcohol is never an excuse. But one of the most common factors among the harassment complaints made today at Google is that the perpetrator had been drinking (~20% of cases). Our policy is clear: Excessive consumption of alcohol is not permitted when you are at work, performing Google business, or at…

I never drank at work, I don't understand why people do...

Re: A note to our employees

#87

Post by ummonk »

shmel wrote: post #16

Mandatory sexual harassment training sounds quite disturbing. Anybody can comment in detail how it is conducted? Is it really mandatory for everyone or only for men?

Corporate sexual harassment training is usually quite reasonable (unlike college training which can veer into the absurd).

I'm not sure how much it actually helps prevent sexual harassment though - most sexual harassers are just jerks (i.e. not people who don't know better and would stop if only they had been through sexual harassment training).

Re: A note to our employees

#89

Post by Benjammer »

fmitchell0 wrote: post #34
Benjammer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If implied in your question that the goal should be equity in 'thought', how do you propose that is measured? OP mentioned "ideas & experience," not "thought," which seems like an intentional framing as something unbounded and immeasurable. Diversity of ideas could be measured by the average number of options/solutions that are seriously considered (and investigated/piloted) over the course of multiple projects for…

I appreciate your response and respect your idea of trying to combine a lot of aspects to get the goal. I would challenge you on one point though: > gender/skin color combination, but if they all grew up in the New England suburbs and all of them went to either MIT or Harvard, you are generally NOT going to have a diversity of experience, even though everyone _looks_ different Unfortunately, there are many stories, p…

You are correct, I should not have used absolute, either-or terms there ("you are generally NOT ..."). I meant to say that you would not have _as much_ diversity of experience.

Re: A note to our employees

#90

Post by reaperducer »

philip1209 wrote: post #52
ericabiz wrote: post #48

One of the more interesting pieces is buried in the linked PDF: "Excessive alcohol: Harassment is never acceptable and alcohol is never an excuse. But one of the most common factors among the harassment complaints made today at Google is that the perpetrator had been drinking (~20% of cases). Our policy is clear: Excessive consumption of alcohol is not permitted when you are at work, performing Google business, or at…

Why not just ban alcohol at work? Why can't work be work, and social stuff can happen outside of it? I know it sounds a bit extreme. But, after reading "It doesn't have to be crazy it work," I feel like companies use alcohol to bribe employees to stay at the office after-hours. A midground would be drinking only with sit-down food. Nobody is doing shots while having dinner. Another idea could be making company social…

I know it sounds a bit extreme.

Not extreme at all. Except for salespeople having business lunches, in the United States, drinking on company time is pretty much verboten outside of the tech bubble.

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