Microsoft released a 50-page report from an outside law firm that was commissioned to review its sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies and practices after a successful shareholder resolution on the topic last year.
The report by law firm ArentFox Schiff makes a series of recommendations to revise the company’s policies and approaches, improve transparency and opportunities for feedback, and address what the firm described as “perceptions” inside the company that senior leaders are not held accountable.
Microsoft pledged a series of steps in response to the report, including a plan to publish an annual report on its sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies that will include the “total number of reported sexual harassment concerns, percentage of those substantiated, and types of corrective actions taken.”
The ArentFox report recaps Microsoft’s investigation into allegations made against its co-founder Bill Gates by a former employee, without providing significant new details.
In addition, the report summarizes ArentFox’s review of a May 2022 Business Insider story about several senior Microsoft executives, some of whom have since left the company.
“Our review of the records relating to two of the executives suggests that some employees had a perception based on some degree of evidence that the Company tolerated their inappropriate conduct,” the report says, recommending that Microsoft “consider taking some actions that attempt to minimize that perception.”
Microsoft said in its implementation plan that it will make changes internally “to emphasize that senior leaders will continue to be held accountable for substantiated policy violations and behavioral concerns.”
The shareholder proposal was submitted by Arjuna Capital, whose managing partner, Natasha Lamb, said in a news release Tuesday that the report and implementation plan “provide a leading example for companies to follow.”
However, Arjuna notes that the report “only briefly touches on the Bill Gates investigation, offering little to no new information and citing privacy concerns for this lack of transparency.” The proposal had called for the release of the “results of any independent investigation into executive level allegations, including recent Gates’ allegations.”
from GeekWire https://www.geekwire.com/2022/microsoft-releases-outside-report-on-harassment-and-discrimination-pledges-reforms/