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posted by martyb on Tuesday February 11 2020, @11:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the HR-aka-"people-operations" dept.

Google's HR head to step down amid tension among employees:

[Eileen] Naughton, who has held various roles at the company since 2006, has led the company's human resources department as the vice president of people operations since 2016. The news was previously reported by Fortune.

Employee headcount has doubled since 2016, when Naughton took the helm, as it's added more than 70,000 employees. The company has faced considerable tension with employees over the last several years, including a November 2018 employee walk-out after employees learned the company had paid departing Android chief $90 million in 2014, despite credible claims of sexual misconduct, as well as protests over the company's plans to work with the Defense Department on artificial intelligence technology and a plan -- since abandoned -- to create a censored version of its search engine for China. In November 2019, the company fired four employees who allegedly shared internal information.

[...] Naughton's departure comes in the midst of a slow-rolling executive shakeup over the last several months. In December, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped down from their roles as the CEO and President of Google's holding company, Alphabet. Sundar Pichai, who had already been Google's CEO for several years, took the helm. The company's long-time chief legal officer David Drummond retired at the end of January.

[...] A Google spokesperson confirmed Naughton will be taking another role within the company, but declined to provide any details on what that would be. She'll work with Pichai and Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat to find another leader to fill her role.

"Over the past 13 years, Eileen has made major contributions to the company in numerous areas, from media partnerships, to leading our sales and operations in the UK and Ireland, to leading our People Operations team through a period of significant growth -- during which over 70,000 people started their careers at Google," Pichai said in a statement the company sent to CNBC. "We're grateful to Eileen for all she's done and look forward to her next chapter at Google."

Google HR chief Eileen Naughton to step down amid employee tensions:

Eileen Naughton is stepping down as Google human resources chief.

Google's head of human resources, Eileen Naughton, said on Monday she will depart that role, as tensions continue to rise between company management and workers who have protested the search giant's workplace culture.

[...] The shift comes as Google faces the greatest challenges to its culture in its 21-year history. During her tenure as head of HR, activists within the search giant have protested several decisions by leadership, including the signing of an artificial intelligence contract with the Pentagon and Google's work in China. Most notably, 20,000 employees walked out of their offices in November 2018 to protest leadership's handling of sexual assault allegations.

[...] Naughton, though, said her decision to step down isn't related to any of those cultural clashes. 

"My husband and I have decided -- after six years on the road, first in London and now San Francisco -- to return home to New York to be closer to our family," Naughton said in a statement. "I'm at the very beginning of the process and wanted to let everyone know upfront, as I'll be working with [Google CEO] Sundar [Pichai] and [Google CFO] Ruth [Porat] to find a great leader for the People Operations team."


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 12 2020, @12:12AM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Wednesday February 12 2020, @12:12AM (#957019) Journal

    Palantir Wins New Pentagon Deal With $111 Million From the Army [soylentnews.org]

    After Google abandoned a Pentagon effort known as Project Maven, Palantir stepped in to help develop video recognition software as part of the project, a move reported earlier by Business Insider.

    They should have been more decisive on accepting/rejecting DoD work. They could also have spun off a company to do the dirty work (most of it, as they are still the ad king) or bought an interest in other companies (maybe they have already done so).

    China is a lost cause. China is not letting Google come back in a meaningful way, and Baidu et al. are probably going to pull ahead in AI development out of surveillance necessity.

    A wave of bad press and internal dissent could have been avoided. Oh well, they are still a behemoth.

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  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday February 12 2020, @12:43AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday February 12 2020, @12:43AM (#957030) Homepage

    Now that's hilarious. Palantir accused Google of not being patriotic, [cnbc.com] then swoops in and gets the contracts. Sly devils.