Microsoft shareholders vote for a report into harassment within the company

Microsoft shareholders have voted for a report into the effectiveness of the company's sexual harassment policies while rejecting another on median pay gaps across race and gender. In a surprise to nobody, shareholders also booted a proposal to prohibit the sale of facial recognition to government entities deep into the long …

[a_yank_lurker]

How About Customers

While internal harassment is bad, the Rejects of Redmond has a long history of harassing customers and other rather ethically challenged antics. I would expect internally there to be a lot of bad behavior based on how they treat their customers. What form the internal harassment takes is uncertain to this outsider but I would expect all forms to some extent.

[Anonymous Coward]

In a surprise to nobody...

Don't be so presumptuous. I was there, and I voted for the facial recognition proposal. The company wants to see its use properly regulated instead, which is fair enough, but I don't trust our governments to regulate on something like that.

[ExampleOne]

Re: In a surprise to nobody...

I think I trust the government to regulate it. Just like I assume they will ignore the regulations when it suits them.

I mean, it’s not like our governments don’t have form for breaking the law when it suits and they think no one will find out.

[Cederic]

how does a harassment report help?

I'm curious about a harassment report. Harassment will happen, it's against the law and MS will be taking measures to prevent it.

Reports of harassment may or may not be true, and may or may not be actionable. When HR guidance is "it's harassment if you feel uncomfortable" it's impossible not to harass people - indeed, people get accused of sexism for merely holding a door open (it's happened to me, and to people I know, at more than one company). If Microsoft sack everybody accused of harassment they're going to lose good staff that did nothing wrong and they're going to create a culture where nobody dares talk to anybody else - at which point they'll start getting reports about exclusion..

If Microsoft investigate each claim properly and take action only when actual harassment has occurred, the report will show that they're not taking action on a high proportion of claims.

So publishing a report doesn't feel it's going to help. It can only provide an additional route for people to attack the company, while failing to help the company tackle harassment in a measured and appropriate form.