Google Wants Employees to Work Instead of Arguing Politics

In the past few months,  2,600 Google employees have signed a petition asking the company to do more about harassment--and to make HR investigations transparent, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

It"s one of the many changes going on at Google when it comes to employee communications. Google has encouraged dialogue unrelated to the workplace for years, and now it"s not working out so well. 

Last year, Google fired James Damore for expressing his views about how choice and biology may be the true driver for the lack of women in tech, saying that his views perpetuated gender stereotypes and violated the code of conduct. 

But, not everyone at Google agreed with the decision. And, it seems, that there is very little at Google that everyone agrees on. Because the company encouraged message boards and the like to discuss non-work issues, they are dealing with trolls and hurt feelings and it"s a big mess. 

It was a nice idea--let"s make the workplace your whole world, where you can bring your "whole self." But, as I"ve written before, that doesn"t work out so well in practice. Google is finding it necessary to create clear policies about what constitutes harassment, including rules against doxxing--releasing personal information--as retaliation.

While this is a good idea--employees shouldn"t be attempting to punish each other for political and other views that someone finds offensive--the fact that Google reached this level indicates an overall culture problem. 

Google has long been praised for innovative practices and former Head of People Operations, Lazlo Bock, received praise in many circles. But, perhaps some of that praise was too early--when you have a culture that has employees trolling and doxxing each other, perhaps there is an HR problem. 

The solution is to focus on work and tell people to find their social life elsewhere. But that requires people to leave the office. Bock claimed that the reason for all the on-campus perks was to increase conversations and innovation, it also kept people on campus. It"s difficult to build relationships with people outside of work when you"re never gone. As a result, you need your co-workers to meet all your needs, including your need to discuss politics. Which, as anyone could guess, can be a disaster.

Google needs to get back to work, shut down the non-work related boards, and make sure people gain outside social lives. You know, like a traditional business. Turns out those stodgy old fogies were on to something.