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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."
(Score: 4, Informative) by Hartree on Wednesday February 12 2020, @12:56AM (8 children)
PHB A: "All those people we hired when that was our motto are causing trouble now that we're evil."
PHB B: "We obviously need to address the root cause."
PHB A: "Stop being evil?"
PHB B: "Don't be silly! We should fire the head of HR who unwisely hired non-evil people when that was our motto."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by arslan on Wednesday February 12 2020, @01:14AM (7 children)
You joke, but the head of HR should be part of the top level leadership team and should have understood the moment they pivot to "start being evil" _internally_ (rightly or wrongly) that they should ensure their HR strategy going forward should help and not hinder that strategy.
It is absolutely the head of HR's job to ensure they maintain a proper HR strategy that aligns the workforce with the corporate goals. Any global HR lead that doesn't even understand that and think it is just about creating feel good environment for the workforce isn't really worth the paycheck.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday February 12 2020, @01:34AM (5 children)
Righto, because a "top leadership team" has God-like abilities and can never choose a nonsensical, impossible to implement strategy.
And the employees are things that can be reprogrammed on the spot, give or take some hours of effort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday February 12 2020, @02:17AM (4 children)
Nobody said about instant change - but the leaders in each are should be making complementary adjustments to their overall functional area's strategy. I'm not at Google and wasn't commenting whether this particular instance the HR head was at fault, was more a generalized comment. I've seen enough HR chief that completely misses the point in aligning their workforce strategy to that of the overall corporate one though.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 12 2020, @02:38AM
You weren't too explicit on this one, I couldn't rule out the intention to suggest that's exactly what happened in the TFA context.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 12 2020, @09:28AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 12 2020, @09:29AM (1 child)
"Should have understood the moment they pivot" sounds like instant change to me.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday February 12 2020, @11:04PM
Umm I think you need to re-read the chain of comments, the "instant change" that I was responding to was this claim by someone else:
and you decide to latch on that to refute me by quoting this from me:
where the "they" here refers to the management not the employees. Sure management can change their minds but nowhere did I say employees can be reprogrammed on the spot, I said the leaders need to re-adjust their strategy, i.e. if you're a HR chief you need to adjust your workforce strategy - if you don't and the opposing trajectory continues and it blows up later, you deserve to be fired.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 12 2020, @06:00PM
The HR department is not there to protect employees, nor is it there to be the moral conscience of the company. HR is there for one reason: to protect the company from lawsuits. It is an offshoot of the legal team.
The "exit interview" they give isn't so they can get last-minute thoughts about the company and figure out how to improve -- it is so they know if there is a thread of a lawsuit. That non-compete clause they force you to sign certainly isn't there to protect you either. The file of complaints they keep isn't something they show to management to improve the company -- it is there to prove they followed all applicable laws regarding your complaint. Every single thing they do is there because they are either legally mandated to do it, or because it saves them from lawsuits.
HR is the most evil department in a company. If they see no legal liability, they won't give you the time of day.