Summary:
Google has faced its own #MeToo moments. Along with her employees, Ruth Porat participated in a 2018 walkout protesting Google’s treatment of women in the workforce. But what measures did the company actually put in place to effect change?
Doing the right thing often requires openness, listening, being willing to examine yourself, your motivations and your actions. Ruth Porat and Thuy Vu discuss Google’s efforts to address the concerns of women in the workforce.
There has been a lot of talk about gender inequality and sexual harassment in the tech industry. In 2018, you took part in the massive google walk up this was where about 20,000 women walked out worldwide and protested how the company handles sexual harassment complaints. You're a top member of the management team. What made you decide to do that and join the walkout?
Well I know that for our entire leadership team we want to ensure that we have the best environment for everyone and so I didn't view this as an us-versus-them I viewed this as a statement that I am with my team that I agree we want this to be the best place for everyone and that if there are ways to further improve we're focused on it. Google has been leading the way in so many of these issues whether it's transparency report or the types of benefits and programs that we have this is core to who we are so for me it was of course I would be with my team.
Have you taken steps to address these issues what has the company done?
At it's core Google has I think some of the most extraordinary programs you know for me how does one really advance the agenda advance the ball on these core issues and it starts with tone from the top but it's not just about that you have to put the policies and programs in place to drive to the type of organization you want, you know my leadership team it's about about 50% of my leaders are women. I think those role models send a message all the way through my organization which is invaluable and then at Google we have things like extraordinary family leave. We have unconscious bias training. We do gender pay equity we have a whole host of process and programs with tremendous rigor around them to support the goal that we have and so coming out of the the efforts last year we further extended some of the things that we're doing for example, the care if somebody goes through a process that you know they're concerned about sexual harassment those are those are obviously tough to go through personally and emotionally and it takes a lot of courage to use your voice and register the concern the complaint and so we put more effort around having someone there with you what's the kind of post care that one provides so there were a number of steps that we put in placeas a result of the feedback in the comments.
