Equitable P&C process improvements

Motivation

The Alphabet/DeepMind issue-reporting and grievance processes do not currently match our core values as a company. This document details improvements to that process, which, in our view, would make significant progress towards engendering an inclusive and safe workplace and demonstrate our commitment to DE&I for talent acquisition and retention.

These changes are crucial for Alphabet, and their need has been especially salient during WFH, when it can be harder to document abuse (for example, video calls may not have witnesses). Online norms can also give rise to a more hostile work culture. The chronic feeling of organisational disconnect during WFH, coupled with high-profile issues at Alphabet, makes it all the more important that employees are familiar with our P&C processes, and feel trust in our institution.

Currently, P&C is often seen as the ‘last resort’ for reporting problems (for example, out of fear of retaliation, lack of trusted relationships, not knowing the process, or simply embarrassment). How can we make it instead a first port of call and safe harbour?

We describe the proposed changes in 9 areas first, and then provide further context for each.

Proposed Changes

The following changes would help make P&C standards more transparent, and ensure that they are applied consistently for all employees.

Ongoing audits of grievance outcomes to assess fairness

• Commission and conduct regular (6–12 monthly) external audits of P&C processes to assess fairness (specifically, track correlation between employee level / job title / position / tenure in org with duration of process and severity of outcome, to serve as both a ‘pulse’ of how things are going, as well as to be aggregated over time to track improvements in the process). An external report would reduce the risk of conflicts of interest.
• Communicate, quantitatively, how equitably cases have been handled along with the annual harassment and wage gap reports. This would entail setting a standard timeline for grievance types, and reporting % cases that deviate from the standard timelines, and how this correlates with the level, position in the company, and tenure of the reporter and reported participants. The correlation of level, position and tenure with grievance outcome (whether escalated to disciplinary, and severity of disciplinary outcome) should also be reported.

Timelines and timeliness

• Work out standard timelines for different grievance processes in advance. Grievance investigations should typically be resolved within 2 weeks, but should never exceed 2 months at the maximum. The appeal process should not exceed 1 month except in extenuating circumstances. Google’s grievance procedure specifies that the investigation report should be delivered within seven days of the initial grievance meeting; 2 months should be more than sufficient.
• Communicate this standardized timeline to all parties at the beginning of a grievance process, and adhere to this in good faith.
• Promptly communicate deviations from this timeline.
• Include in the internal Workplace Commitment communications metrics of the range of time it took to resolve grievances (including average, and longest, process times), as well as the number of cases that did not meet the 2 month target.
• If P&C is not appropriately resourced to handle grievance cases in a timely manner, commission a dedicated expert/team or an external investigator for handling (especially serious) grievance cases.

Put employee safety first

• No more NDAs for victims.
• Do not threaten those going through grievance cases with disciplinary action to prevent them from seeking support outside HR.
• If someone is accused of a criminal act, they should be suspended until the case is resolved.
• Office restrictions should not be put on the victims, but those credibly accused.
• At minimum, do not require victims to work alongside their harassers. If moving office or changing teams is necessary, it should not be the victim who is required to move or change (unless they request it).
• Pause promotion considerations for people under investigations.
• Do not rely on EAP as a stop gap solution, and do not push it on employees. EAP is not a safe source of support, given Alphabet has previously used sensitive EAP information against its employees.

Transparency, fairness, and accountability

• Internally communicate an annual report of Bet numbers on harassment cases mirroring Google’s reports, in accordance with our Workplace Commitments & Enhancements. This will enable us to assess progress towards our goals and make the wider employee base aware that this isn’t just a problem that happens at some nebulous “other” organization.
• Discuss the Workplace Commitments, as well as the aforementioned numbers, openly in company-wide events. Communication about these issues and these annual numbers should involve more than a one-off email.
• Internally report separate Bet numbers on the gender wage gap, promotion rates, and other metrics relevant to DE&I.

Better anonymous reporting structures

• Implement an anonymous reporting structure (not an anonymous discussion forum) that effectively aggregates employee experiences, and permits follow up (suggestions for possible architectures can be found below, under “Further context”).
• Dedicate a strike team to exploring and implementing potential technical reporting solutions.

Greater transparency, support, and mentorship throughout the process

• Extend or replicate Google’s grievance mentoring and support programs to DeepMind/other Bet employees. Mentors should be familiar with the process, acting to help support and sense-check mentees, as well as advise how to escalate if needed. Put in place a standard training for mentors, like the blue dot program.
• Provide visibility for participants as to who in the organization has knowledge of their specific grievance. This may also act as a constraint to better ensure that others are only apprised on a truly ‘need to know’ basis.
• Share appropriate resources with people entering grievance processes. Organize and revamp existing resource lists.
• Make sure all employees are suitably educated on the process and what to expect.
• Hold “know your rights” trainings to equip employees to report and work through the grievance process before they need to, when it’s easy to learn without pressure. This could be an important addition to new starter training as well as an important resource for managers, and would have a positive and empowering effect on employees.
• Give participants sufficient time (more than 24–48 hours, which is the current standard) to find an adequate companion when scheduling investigation meetings.

Enhanced training for P&C partners and managers

• Assess and address any gaps in training of managers and current P&C members. This should include anti-harassment, DE&I and bias, conflict resolution, consent, working with sexual assault & bullying victims, and any other relevant topics.
• Make sure P&C members are up to date on best practices and interview skills.

A fairer balance of rights for victims

• Behavioral feedback to the accused should be delivered ‘downwards’–either by P&C or manager, and not by victims.
• Confidentially share high-level outcomes with victims, particularly if the accused was found in the wrong.

Survey those who have been through P&C processes for their feedback and suggestions

• Establish feedback mechanisms for future grievance participants to make recommendations and share their experiences.
• Elicit anonymous or open feedback from former participants.
• This research might be best conducted by an independent third party.
• As specified in the Workplace Commitments, have at least four follow up meetings to collect further feedback/reflections from the participants and ensure they are not experiencing retaliation. Offer these on both shorter (30 days) and longer (months-years) timescales, to those who have been through formal or informal processes as well as those who have had sensitive information about themselves revealed to executives or their management chain.

Further context

Ongoing audits of grievance outcomes to assess fairness

Evidence suggests that there are serious inconsistencies in how P&C standards are applied depending on an employee’s level, tenure and position in the company (e.g., Ops, engineers, research scientists, etc) — the apparent hierarchy across roles and levels appears to be mirrored in P&C standards. If true, this is, of course, extra troubling, given the gender and racial imbalances at senior levels, as well as in researcher vs Ops demographics.

An external audit of all grievances should be conducted every 6–12 months, including a comparison of the time it takes to investigate and resolve grievances, as well as the severity of outcomes, against employee level and position within the org. This should be reported transparently along with the numbers of grievance cases & the wage/promo gap discussed above. Ensuring equitable treatment is a pillar of DE&I. An external audit of the DM grievance process is essential to avoid conflicts of interest, and will help P&C partners to reflect on and learn from previous cases, as well as serve as an external “institutional memory.”

The establishment of an ombudsperson role, independent of P&C, would further help to resolve issues fairly and promptly, and ensure employee concerns on processes or other issues are handled impartially.

Timelines and timeliness

Guidelines for grievance process best practices stress that organizations should communicate a reasonable timeline at the beginning of a grievance process, and adhere to it in good faith. Also, the severity of claims should dictate the promptness of response. Grievance procedures should be considered one of P&C’s most important duties, and prioritized and resourced as such. Alphabet P&C does not share concrete timelines with grievance participants. Swift resolution is not only for the benefit of all parties participating in grievance processes (including clearing those innocent as soon as possible), but for the safety of other potential victims. Exposing employees to the potential for abuse or harassment any longer than absolutely necessary is a major liability.

Notes and feedback from meetings should be shared with participants promptly, within 3 business days. Investigators should give participants regular updates on progress, and any unavoidable deviations from the original timeline should be promptly communicated in good faith.

Extended timelines wear down and demoralize those who report problems. P&C should commit to resolving grievance cases within two weeks, and never exceed a maximum of two months (for reference, Alphabet’s own grievance policy dictates a standard timeline should be seven days, and a common standard in US HR practices is 1 week). As dictated by best practices, different standard timelines can be adopted for different situations to ensure there are no unnecessary delays in the process, but must not exceed two months. Timelines longer than this are unnecessary and inexcusable except in extenuating circumstances. UK employees do not have access to legal recourse through the tribunal courts beyond three months after an incident has occured. Therefore it is crucial that these cases be handled swiftly–not only to protect other potential victims from potential abuse, but to protect the legal rights of the accuser. There is no excuse for further drawn-out timelines except in extremely rare situations, and so P&C should make a good faith commitment to standardised timelines. Grievance processes should be prioritized by P&C and properly resourced.

Put employee safety first

Victims of harassment have been silenced by NDAs and legal retaliation for years, it’s time to voluntarily end these practices. Furthermore, victims undergoing grievance procedures are told they will face disciplinary action if they talk about their case with anyone outside their investigators, cutting them off from mentorship and support. This should not continue.

The safety of employees–those involved in a grievance, and others at risk of being victimized–should be the first priority. Employees being investigated for criminal acts of violence or assault should be suspended or restricted to working from home. Alleged victims should not be the ones experiencing office restrictions, nor should they be expected to continue to work alongside their harasser. The burden of the victim’s safety should not be shouldered by the victims, and this is again in line with recommended best practices.

Alphabet should be more proactively protecting its staff. Those accused of wrongdoing should have promotion consideration paused until the investigation is finalized. This underscores the need for timely investigations.

EAP services are offered to participants at every meeting; this becomes insulting for those who want a concrete, not psychological, solution to their issue. It’s worth noting that EAP is not a safe source of support, given Alphabet has previously used sensitive EAP information against its employees.

Furthermore, given the lack of diversity amongst most employees in positions of responsibility, how can Alphabet better support them to be great leaders who are sensitive to abuses of power? For example, DE&I training should be mandatory for managers.

Transparency, fairness, and accountability

As part of its Workplace Commitments and Enhancements, Alphabet reports its wage gap numbers publicly, and its harassment numbers internally. This is highly commendable, and, as laid out by the Workplace Commitments, Bets should adhere to the same principles. Accordingly, Bets should have their numbers broken out independently and these should be communicated internally. Because our numbers are lumped in with the wider org, there tends to be a lot of magical thinking and exceptionalism amongst Bet employees.

Breaking grievance numbers out would ensure that Bets are being held appropriately accountable and would aid the general recognition that yes, such things happen even within Bets. This is fundamental to establishing an environment where victims are not alienated or silenced by a collective belief that nothing ever goes wrong within Bets, or have their experiences diminished as “exceptions”. Communicating our numbers would also serve as a deterrent of such behaviors if it becomes publicly recognised that harassing or abusive actions have genuine consequences. And importantly, being transparent about our numbers is the only way progress against our DE&I goals can be openly tracked.

These communications should not only be shared once a year by email, they should be openly discussed in org-wide meetings. This is especially important because emails are an inherently poor way of communicating information: for instance, new starters who joined after an important resource was communicated once may not have an easy time finding that resource on their own. The aforementioned internal report and workplace commitments should be included in resource lists.

In addition to grievance and harassment case numbers, Bets should also follow the Workplace Commitments principle by reporting wage gap numbers. Specifically, we should internally report separate Bet numbers on the wage gap, promotion rates, levels in tech and Ops roles, and other metrics relevant to DE&I. This should be broken down by gender as well as for under-represented people of colour. These numbers should be openly discussed in org-wide meetings in order to highlight the most salient issues, and normalize discussing these problems.

Better anonymous reporting structures

Sexual harassment is only reported by 30% of people who experience it, and by even fewer bystanders. The reasons for this are myriad, but many could be addressed by better reporting structures and addressing the fear of retaliation. Currently there are mechanisms for anonymous feedback at Alphabet, but they require including so much detail about the situation (in order to be fully descriptive of the situation in a one-off communication, given there’s no opportunity for P&C to reach out about further details) there is no way to actually anonymize the interaction. One way of dealing with this is by pooling reports–often, those who exhibit harassing or abusive behaviors do so repeatedly.

The majority of people who report harassment say that they were primarily motivated to do so in order to protect others. This impulse can be leveraged in the design of better reporting systems. For example, someone might experience a mildly inappropriate encounter or microaggression with another employee, and decide it does not warrant reporting. But what if there are twenty other employees who have had a similar experience? How do we integrate over many disconnected subthreshold encounters? These are questions a dedicated strike team might explore solutions to. One possibility could be an anonymous system where employees can log small encounters or microaggressions, but a more serious investigation is only opened after some threshold is reached based on the number of reports or individuals reporting. This threshold could, for example, be specified by the reporter (e.g., if x other unique reports are filed, this person should be flagged for investigation). Then the reports can be aggregated and feedback given to help the employee correct their behavior, or a more thorough grievance investigation may be opened if necessary. Or, an anonymous mailing group like mh-anon might be replicated, with dedicated members of P&C as the sole recipients. Incidentally, mh-anon is an excellent example of an extremely supportive and constructive anonymous forum, and belies the notion that anonymous forums necessarily devolve into vitriol.

We should not assume that anonymous reporting is necessarily untrustworthy or invites bad actors. We can do better for our victims than providing an internet black hole to chuck reports into. This is, after all, a tech company. There could conceivably be a system for employees to anonymously send reports as well as receive and respond to follow up questions. People who submit reports might be given an option to securely and privately store their contact information (or an anonymous address) with the report, should more information be needed after a threshold was passed. If a more serious investigation is launched, those who have previously submitted claims can be anonymously contacted and asked if they wish to openly or anonymously formalize their claims into a grievance. There are many ways to protect a reporter’s anonymity while tracking reports uniquely, and these should be actively explored. Alphabet prides itself on solving hard problems, and this is a space it is crucial we excel in.

Greater transparency and mentorship throughout the process

Currently, employees are not given a clear roadmap of their grievance process, or appropriate guidance on navigating it. In fact, they’re actively discouraged from seeking support once a formal complaint is raised: they are told they will face disciplinary action if they talk to others about their issue (even their managers). Although there are legitimate privacy concerns, at the same time grievance participants’ identities, sexual orientation and the details of their cases may be openly shared with executives, the legal team, those in the participant’s management chain, and many others. Participant identity should be better protected, and participants should have greater visibility of who in the organization knows about their grievance. This may also help to limit who is informed to a truly ‘need to know’ basis.

Harassment is psychologically damaging; it can rob victims of their sense of self worth and ability to self-advocate. Victims of harassment and abuse are often afraid or unable to stand up for themselves. Navigating an opaque P&C process becomes all the harder when they don’t know their rights or what protections they are entitled to. Mentorship and support should be provided to all participants in grievance processes. Google’s new grievance process mentorship program should be extended to, or replicated by, Bets. Company policies, supporting materials, employee rights, hotlines and other resources should be collated and actively shared with participants. Employees should be partnered with their P&C rep, or another mentor, to advise on the process and how to handle it. As dictated by UK law and when appropriate, Bets should report serious cases to the police, or support the victim in doing so.

Currently, meetings (particularly first meetings with the investigation team) are scheduled with only 24–48 hours notice, and in that time participants are told they should find a companion to bring, should they want one. This is often not enough preparatory time, especially for employees who wish to bring in external support, consider how to ask for support, or put counselling support in place before or after the meeting. Employees have reported being pressured to attend meetings their companions cannot make, which is a clear failure of the companion system. Meetings should be communicated as far ahead in advance as possible, and clear guidance on who may serve as companions immediately communicated at the start of a grievance process.

Finally, cases are commonly handed off between multiple teams–from the first point of P&C or manager reporting to the investigative team, a separate appeal team, and a separate disciplinary committee. This is up to eight people, many of whom are strangers, that victims must repeat their traumatizing stories to, without knowing what information has or hasn’t been shared. A mentor would serve as a common thread of support through this disorienting process.

Enhanced training for P&C partners

These are difficult conversations for anyone to have, and those directing the process are bound to make mistakes. This is why standardising timelines and roadmaps will be important for both participants as well as investigators. All P&C members should have suitable training in issues of consent, sensitively handling victims of harassment, assault and bullying. They must recognise that reporters are afraid of coming forward, whether because of fear of retaliation, or they are actively being controlled by threats or bullying. Gaps in P&C training should be addressed and investigators should receive regular training to be sure they are up to date on best practices.

A fairer balance of rights for victims

There is currently an imbalance of concern that favors the accused, which is reflected in several aspects of the process.

In many cases, the onus of providing behavioral feedback is put on the victim. This is not appropriate, especially in cases where the victim is subordinate to, or managed by, the perpetrator. Behavioral feedback should be delivered by P&C, or by the perpetrator’s manager.

For cases that are raised to disciplinary proceedings, victims are not given any information as to the outcome of their complaints. In some cases it might be obvious, as with a termination. But in many cases, it’s a black box. We have to balance the rights of people who have been affected (in terms of knowing justice was done, guaranteeing a secure working environment) against the privacy of people who have allegations brought against them and are found to have acted wrongfully. This can still be communicated sensitively and confidentially.

Survey those who have been through P&C processes for their feedback and suggestions

Many victims who have been through P&C processes were never followed up with after the case was resolved. Clearly anyone who has been through these processes could share a wealth of useful feedback and learnings, and surely more consideration must be made for all parties going through them. There should be a concerted effort to collect feedback and suggestions from volunteers throughout the company who have previously been through P&C processes (whether anonymously or in person). This should thereafter become an integral part of the grievance process: asking after the participant’s experience, eliciting feedback and ideas for how it could have been made less onerous for them, and most importantly, taking that feedback seriously, and implementing it. This is also important to track subtle or overt retaliation or other consequences for participants. Offer followup meetings on both shorter (30 days) and longer (months-years) timescales, to those who have been through formal or informal processes as well as those who have had sensitive information about themselves revealed to executives or their management chain.

If you want to get in touch with me, email ConcernedDeepMinder@protonmail.com