Open letter to DeepMinders and all Alphabet employees

I’m a former colleague of yours who left DeepMind after I was sexually harassed by a senior employee. Though I had concrete evidence and reported my ongoing harassment to DeepMind HR, they took almost a year to resolve my case. Despite years of pledges to “do better”, my case convinced me that Alphabet’s HR (aka People & Culture) practices remain grossly inadequate, and I’m writing this today to effect whatever change I can. I write anonymously to protect my privacy and forestall complaints that victims who come forward are “attention seeking.” My only agenda is change.

DeepMind and Alphabet claim to be committed to upholding certain workplace values, and to becoming a more equitable workplace–I write this letter to hold them to that. I write to my fellow employees directly because your talents are what makes DeepMind possible. You are its only real currency. I urge you to exercise that.

The details of my story are less important than how HR handled it. In brief: I was the subject of severely disturbing sexual and behavioural harassment by a senior colleague for months, including multiple propositions, grotesque emails and texts including explicit confessions of acts of sexual violence against women, and threats of self-harm. Despite hard evidence of this, HR took nearly a year to resolve my case. It was, I believe, intentionally dragged out, and many of my claims were initially minimised or outright ignored. During and after the case, HR would go without updating me or responding to my inquiries for weeks or months. You can imagine I was not only concerned for my own safety, but that of other women at the company, yet throughout the investigation the person was never suspended — in fact, after I first reported him for safety concerns, the company announced he had been promoted, and during the grievance process he received a company award.

Thankfully, the person in question was ultimately dismissed, but there is no world in which it is acceptable for HR to take months to resolve harassment cases, especially when hard evidence exists. This is wildly out of line with the two weeks promised in Alphabet’s employee handbook, as well as industry-accepted ethical standards set by professional HR bodies. Unfortunately, I came to learn such timelines are common at DeepMind and Alphabet.

I’ve since learned of several mishandled cases parallel to mine. This includes Moose’s bullying, which went on for years and negatively impacted — or ended — the careers of many DeepMinders. Having spoken with other victims at both DeepMind and Alphabet, we found evidence of a pattern wherein more senior employees accused of harm are protected by HR, facing fewer consequences, if any. It is also evident that cases are intentionally drawn out: in the UK, victims of harassment have three months to take their cases to the tribunal courts, after which they must resort to private courts at personal expense. But they must also show good faith effort to have attempted to resolve their issue at work: by dragging out these processes, DeepMind and Alphabet avoids legal recourse. Even if these processes are not intentionally drawn out and are simply subject to the same bureaucratic inefficiencies that drag out our recruiting process, this is inexcusably slow and needs to be addressed both out of respect for victims’ working conditions, as well as employee safety overall.

Very few people I’ve spoken to are able to share their story due to the company’s restrictive NDAs. Those of us in grievance processes are told we could face disciplinary action if we speak to anyone else, even our managers, about our cases — robbing us of basic support. Many former and current employees have held back their stories for fear of the company suing them or retaliating against them, ensuring these stories stay hidden from coworkers and the general public.

What matters, moving forward, is change. After months of conversations with others who have gone through HR processes, we discovered a number of common issues with how our grievances were handled. We have documented changes we believe must urgently be made, detailed here.

In brief, Alphabet should commit to the following:

• Enact standardised grievance timelines under two weeks, and never exceeding two months.
• End NDAs for victims of workplace harassment, following the lead of California and Washington, so victims are not prevented from speaking out.
• Put victim safety first throughout grievance processes, and do not put the burden of workplace safety on victims.
• Commission regular (annual or biannual) external audits of our P&C processes to assess fairness.
• Internally publish these audits along with the grievance numbers (already published as part of the Workplace Commitments), and openly discuss these findings at company-wide events.
• Implement better anonymous reporting structures.

We believe these changes will improve the grievance process for everyone involved and ensure that processes are equitable and reflect industry-standard best practices. I hope not one more of our colleagues will have to live through months or even years fearing for their safety at work.

Why am I writing you? I began my process fully trusting DeepMind. I did everything “right,” through official corporate channels. After my 10-month process, I spent another nine months trying to get the organisation to commit to adopting any of the aforementioned recommendations. I first went to our COO, who passed me on to our Employee Relations representative. After months of discussions, HR made only one minor improvement. I then flagged my findings of systematic inequality in grievance procedures to Ethics and Compliance, who bounced my complaint about HR back to HR. I told them that wasn’t appropriate, but received no response. Given women and minorities are disproportionately the subject of harassment and bullying, and disproportionately levelled lower across Alphabet, levelling biases in the grievance process are a compounded DEI issue. When I communicated these equity concerns to our head of DEI, I received no reply. This letter comes after years of failing to effect change from within. DeepMind and Alphabet leadership cannot continue to bury their head in the sand.

What you can do

Hold leadership accountable

Email Abbie Bates (abbiebates@google.com, Director of DeepMind P&C), Fiona Cicconi (fcicconi@google.com, Alphabet’s Senior VP People Ops), and your team’s P&C partner. Ask that P&C commit to improving their practices. If you agree with any of our recommended changes, ask that they be adopted.

Have the hard conversations

Advocate for change by engaging leadership in Town Halls, at TGIF, and on Slack. Have these conversations with your manager and colleagues. I hope we can encourage and normalise more openness around these topics so that people are aware that difficult work interactions can and do happen, and that there are multiple avenues of support they can seek for help.

Join a union

I never imagined something like this could happen to me, but it did. A friend immediately advised me to join a union, but I didn’t, thinking her advice too cynical. My case was open and shut; I thought it would be resolved within weeks. I was wrong. I do not want what happened to me to happen to any of you. Please don’t be as naive as I was: HR is not on your side, nor is Alphabet’s team of corporate lawyers. At minimum, know your rights.

After spending nearly a year to get leadership to make good on its promise of “listening,” I have very little hope for change from within. If you’re based in the UK, join Unite or UTAW. If you work in the US or Canada, join AWU. My biggest regret in all this was not having sought support. A union of my coworkers could have offered mentorship, advocacy and guidance through the process. The company is incentivised to protect itself, not you. Join a union as insurance against anything like this ever happening to you. Join to show solidarity with victims of bullying and abuse–many of whom remain at the company. A union is not some other — it’s just the workers who belong to it, helping each other and learning from each other.

I hold no ill will against DeepMind or its leadership, and I still believe in DeepMind’s mission. I understand that the company is strained by a unique calculus, given the rarity of its talent. However, there are basic standards of professionalism, and basic standards of humanity. It has been four years since the Google walkouts, yet the same stories keep recurring.

DeepMind is exceptional in many ways, but there will never be a workplace without conflict. Rather than denying this truth in a bid to protect the company’s reputation, DeepMind leadership needs to grapple with reality as it is, for the good of its employees. I understand it’s difficult to learn about the shortcomings of people and institutions you respect, and I assure you it was just as bewildering to live through. DeepMind needs to prove to its employees that it’s more interested in earning, rather than managing, its reputation.

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