Google's Diversity Issues in the Workplace

Diversity for the Benefit of Business
As Harper (2017) notes, diversity is an increasingly important aspect of business strategy for many companies: it represents the desire by corporations to demonstrate greater corporate social responsibility and tie diversity-promotion in with business success. Google, whose motto is “Do no evil,” has long attempted to promote diversity in its workplace—but the tech company’s success in promoting diversity for the benefit of business has not succeeded very well and the company is now facing a number of law suits from workers who claim they have been targeted, harassed and fired for having a minority viewpoint. Case in point is James Damore, a white male with conservative views who questioned Google’s liberal bias (Nocera, 2018). The issue at Google is somewhat complex: Damore has alleged that Google discriminates against white conservative males; former Google developer Tim Chevalier has alleged that he was let go from the company for mounting a defense against discrimination of ethnic minorities made by white workers; meanwhile, in its attempt to make the workplace more diverse, Google has allegedly “told recruiters for certain jobs to consider candidates only ‘from our underrepresented groups’…and to cancel interviews with white and Asian male job candidates and to purge applications that weren’t women or minorities” which is a type of reverse-discrimination (Nocera, 2018). In short, Google has been hit from all sides of the aisle when it comes to diversity: it has been accused of being too liberal and not liberal enough. In order to address the attacks from all directions, Google has had to come clean about what the diversity situation really is at Google. In order to align its corporate social responsibility policy on diversity with its actual workplace culture, Google had to do some considerable soul searching (McGirt, 2017) and help stakeholders get to the heart of the matter.
Public Relations
Objective: Getting the Truth Out
In order to manage the fallout from the James Damore letter and lawsuit that resulted from his firing, Google launched a public relations campaign to show that it was proactively trying to “do no evil” when it comes to diversity in the workplace. On the Official Blog of Google, Laszlo Bock, the company’s senior vice president of people operations, stated, “We’ve always been reluctant to publish numbers about the diversity of our workforce at Google. We now realize we were wrong, and that it’s time to be candid about the issues” (Bock, 2014). The post revealed that 70% of Google’s employees were male, 30% female, 61% white, 30% Asian, and other 10% were of various other races and ethnicities. McGregor (2014) acknowledged that Google’s decision to release its worker demographics was a step in the right direction: one cannot help oneself until one admits it has a problem. McGregor (2014) stated that “while the numbers may not paint a rosy picture of diversity at Google, several advocates for getting more women and minorities into tech applauded the company's willingness to lead the way in sharing gender and racial demographics.” Google’s PR objective has been, therefore, to identify the facts, set the record straight, and identify its goals.
Strategy
Google’s strategy to address its diversity issues has been to open up about the company’s lack of diversity in the workplace as a starting point. Prior to this revelation, Google, like many other Silicon Valley tech companies, has never released such information. However, in order to address the issues raised by Damore, it released its demographics to show that its attempts to increase diversity were justified by the company’s lack of diversity in the workplace. However, Damore’s complaints were leveled more at the company’s political diversity than at racial or ethnic diversity. Armagan and Ferreira (2005) note “that four dimensions of political culture – nationalism, internationalism, patriotism, and cosmopolitanism – influence firms’ willingness to explore new opportunities and/or to exploit existing products and capabilities across borders” (p. 275). For Google, the strategy has been to conduct diversity training—but that only fanned the flames of political bias that Damore was accusing the company of perpetuating (Pierson & Lien, 2017). According to Google’s own Diversity page, this strategy includes four steps:
1. Sharing progress toward a more representative Google
2. Expanding access to careers in technology
3. Strengthening the company’s community outreach
4. Broadening supplier network and creating inclusive products (Building a Google That Works for Everyone, 2018).
Tactics
Digital media. Google used its digital media blog to come clean on its lack of diversity in the workplace. Its diversity page identifies its strategic aims and offers links to explain in more detail how the company is addressing the diversity topic within its own walls. The company has also used its Google blog to post articles related to how it is advancing its diversity expansion program, for example, via posts by the company’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Director, Yolanda Mangolini, who posted during Black History month about the important contribution that that Google’s Black Googler Network was making at the company (Mangolini, 2016).
Social media. Google has not used social media so much as been the target of social media users in its efforts to boost diversity at the workplace. As Bergen and Huet (2017) note, “Some right-wing websites lionized Damore and accused the company of censoring conservative views.” Moreover, the company’s lack of a social media strategy, has allowed some opponents to see Damore’ firing as confirmation “that the company’s culture makes no room for dissenting political opinions” (Bergen & Huet, 2017). Insteadd, Google CEO Sundar Pichai simply sent a message internally to workers, which indicated that Damore’s memo questioning the company’s diversity policy was a violation of “Code of Conduct and crossed the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace” (Begen & Huet, 2017). Still, Google has used Twitter to promote some of its programs, like #40Forward, “which works with organizations to increase the representation of female entrepreneurs in startup communities, and our baby-friendly startup school Campus for Moms” (Grove, 2015).
Ethical Implication of the Public Relations Efforts
The ethical implications of Google’s Public Relations efforts are that 1) the company is raising awareness about the need for diversity in the workplace, particularly among tech companies in Silicon Valley; 2) the company is standing by its policy of diversity promotion and ignoring the claims and arguments of Damore for the time being. One the one the hand, the ethical implications are that Google is staking its claim to diversity in order to hold itself accountable under its corporate social responsibility policy; on the other, it is not giving a platform to the debate surrounding diversity in the first place. Instead, it is firmly committed to advancing diversity by celebrating women, blacks and other minorities and their achievements, as the several posts on Google’s Official Blog show. For example, Mary Grove, Director of Google for Entrepreneurs, highlighted the company’s #40Forward and Campus for Moms initiatives (Grove, 2015) and Mangolini (2016) highlighted the Black Googler Network.
Internal/External Factors
The legal factors in the case have been mounting on all sides, as Google has been hit with a variety of lawsuits with allegations from both sides of the aisle accusing the company is either being too pro-diversity or not pro-diversity enough. Internally it has had to develop its diversity policies clearly and articulately in order to address these legal issues. Externally, it has faced a barrage of bad press regarding the Damore memo which hit social media and spread like wild fire among conservative media users. Google has, however, not gotten into a social media war with its accusers, instead focusing on how to foster more diversity in itself and the industry as a whole.
Parties Affected
The diversity issues at Google have been felt by both sides of the political aisle. James Damore’s experience was that he was fired for questioning the company’s liberal bias and focus on increasing its diversity as a strategic policy. By taking his complaints to social media, Damore helped to ignite a firestorm that extended outside of Google to a wide range of social media platforms, including Reddit, 4chan, and others, where users began applying the skills of the technological citizenship to attack the attackers of Damore. Tiku (2018) reports that the result has been an all-out sociopolitical war being waged over whether diversity is an appropriate goal in and of itself for a business to pursue; and while such a discussion is important to have, “outspoken diversity advocates at Google say that they are being targeted by a small group of their coworkers in an effort to silence discussions about racial and gender diversity” (Tiku, 2018). Damore’s chief complaint was “that engineering is technical and pure, and that anything else that has to do with social issues is unrigorous and doesn't belong in engineering” (Pierson & Lien, 2017) and that Google was foregoing technical basis for hiring in order to promote its defense of a social issue—diversity. In short, Damore was of a side that felt that diversity should not be used as grounds for determining which workers should be hired as this was a bias against race and ethnicity, too. As a result, Damore filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board and filed a lawsuit.
Public Relations Professional’s Obligation to Each
PR professionals have an obligation to address the legitimate concerns raised by stakeholders and the company has done so with regard to Damore and other unhappy former Google employees. However, the PR professional’s obligation does not extend to actually providing plaintiffs with redress, as that is the company’s job to do if ordered to do so by a court. The PR professional must identify the issues at stake in the situation and address them with facts and statistics and forward-looking goals, which is exactly what Google has done.
Decision-Making Process and How the Organization Reached a Solution
Advice for Similar Cases in the Future
As Badal and Harter (2013) point out, “making diversity an organizational priority and creating an engaged culture for the workforce may result in cumulative financial benefits” (p. 354). This is type of scientific data that is serving as the foundation for Google’s approach to the issue of diversity going forward, and it could easily be applied to other cases that might emerge in the future. By showing how diversity helps to make a business better, companies can align their corporate social responsibility policy with research and make appropriate evidence-based decisions regarding issues like this in the future.
Two Communication Theories That Relate
The two communication theory models that relate to this case are 1) the Public Information Model and 2) the 2-way asymmetrical model. The Public Information Model theory holds that by demonstrating truth and accuracy in reporting, a firm can better control the narrative and get the points across that it wants to highlight and thereby better earn the public’s trust. The 2-way asymmetrical model theory can be used to help educate stakeholders by using scientific persuasion to get them to accept the firm’s point of view for what is best in a situation. Google has applied by theories in its public relations campaign to address the issue of diversity in its workplace.
Ethical Implications that Help Define the Case
The ethical implications that help define the case of Google’s diversity problem are that Google has a responsibility to uphold the ideals that its stakeholders want to promote—which for now appears to be more diversity. It also has a duty to make sure it is not politically biased against workers who do not share the same perspective as the company’s leaders. A diverse workplace is one where all people get along and share a wide range of interests, backgrounds and perspectives.
Conclusion
Google’s solution to its diversity problem has been to open up and demonstrate transparency and accountability. By sharing its failings in the diversity department its PR campaign has allowed for truth to come out, which enabled the company to build on the facts in order to establish a new position going forward. This new position has been to promote its diversity building achievements on its Official Blog and to ignore the social media chatter from individuals attempting to undermine the company’s diversity policy.


References
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Badal, S., & Harter, J. K. (2014). Gender diversity, business-unit engagement, and
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backlash. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-firing-of-diversity-memo-writer-wins-praise-and-hostility
Bock, L. (2014). Getting to work on diversity at Google. Retrieved from
https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/getting-to-work-on-diversity-at-google.html
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Grove, M. (2015). Google demo day: Shining a light on female entrepreneurs.
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Nocera, J. (2018). Google has a diversity problem. And a lawsuit problem. Retrieved
from https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-07/discriminating-against-white-men-isn-t-google-s-big-diversity-problem
Pierson, D. & Lien, T. (2017). Diversity training was supposed to reduce bias at Google.
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