In October 2018, the media reported that technology giant Google responded to what were deemed credible sexual assault claims against a former executive by paying him $90 million and praising him as he left the company.60 Google employees have been pushing for changes related to discrimination, harassment, and equality in the company for years through established channels: working committees, ethics councils, and employee meetings with the CEO. None of these efforts resulted in any real change, according to Meredith Whittaker, founder of Google’s Open Research group.61 It’s not that Google has never responded to employees’ pleas for change. For instance, Google backed down from supplying artificial intelligence to a drone warfare project called Project Maven in the spring of 2018 after 4,000 Google employees signed a petition and a dozen employees resigned in protest.62 And Google employees are recruited on the basis of their mission to “develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible,” so employees have this mission in mind when they judge what the company is (or is not) doing.

After reading a thread of stories from Google employees that was being sent through email after the October 2018 sexual assault story was published, Claire Stapleton had had enough. Claire, a marketing manager at YouTube (an Alphabet/

Google subsidiary), sent an email to a large group of employees saying that they had to do something. Employees replied to the email with ideas about what to demand of the company. These demands were transferred to a Google Doc, and hundreds of employees contributed to the document. They streamlined the document so that five demands remained that had to do with sexual harassment, discrimination, and pay and opportunity inequities for both full-time employees and contractors.

To increase the chances that Google would listen to the employee demands, plans were made to organize a day when employees would walk out of their offices together and ask for their demands to be met. On Tuesday, October 30, 2018, Google employees in two cities planned to participate in the walkout. Two days later, the number of participating cities had expanded to thirty with a field organizer in each of those cities.

 More than 20,000 Google employees and contractors participated. Nine other offices didn’t report protest participant numbers, suggesting that more than 20 percent of Google’s workforce was involved in the walkout.

What did Google leadership do in response? After holding a town hall meeting with employees, they took action by dropping forced arbitration for sexual harassment (but not for discrimination). They also offered sexual harassment training, which was not included in the list of demands. According to one of the walkout organizers, Google leaders tried to claim some degree of credit, saying, “This is a great walkout, and this has been such a wake-up call, and we’re so happy to be now leading the industry in this.”65 The walkout organizers would like more of the employee demands to be met, but they realize that it will likely have to be the employees who keep the conversation going with company leaders.

Google isn’t the only technology company that has employees leading the way toward change. Employees at Amazon have been pushing the company to stop selling facial recognition to the government, and Salesforce employees have been organizing to put an end to a company contract with Customs and Border Protection. Also, Microsoft and Amazon employees are demanding that their companies sever ties with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

7-1. Why is it necessary to ensure that change is managed in an ethical way?

7-2. What is the role of a change agent and how does it ensure that change is achieved ethically?

7-3. How did employees increase driving forces in this case?

7-4. What techniques for reducing resistance to change could employees use to help make further progress toward change?