Microsoft’s shareholders have pressured the tech large to put in writing up an annual report that will element the way it handles sexual harassment instances inside the firm. Investors voted in favor of passing a proposal requesting the annual report at their latest assembly regardless of the corporate’s suggestion that they vote in opposition to it.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft has been planning to reveal the way it implements sexual harassment and gender discrimination insurance policies even earlier than the vote occurred. However, the corporate did not wish to reveal impartial investigations into its executives, together with the probe into Bill Gates. One of the proposal’s key requests is the disclosure of executive-level investigations.
Following the information that Bill and Melinda Gates had been having a divorce, stories got here out accusing the previous of questionable conduct. The Microsoft co-founder allegedly pursued women who labored for him on the tech large and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2019, Microsoft’s board of administrators opened an investigation after discovering that he had an affair with an worker round 20 years in the past.
The better transparency round sexual harassment within the firm was proposed by monetary companies supplier Arjuna Capital. Natasha Lamb, a portfolio supervisor at Arjuna, said during the meeting that the investor is “concerned about Microsoft’s alleged continued culture of workplace sexual harassment and its history of unfulfilled previous commitments to resolve it.” Arjuna mentioned the stories concerning the probe into Gates’ affair and conduct that got here out earlier this yr “put into question whether Microsoft was maintaining and protecting a culture of sexual harassment, especially seeing how Bill Gates was protected around this issue by the board.”
Despite advising in opposition to voting for the proposal, Microsoft will take steps to adjust to it. Company President Brad Smith mentioned Microsoft will usher in a 3rd occasion to evaluate its investigations and can share what these assessments comprise. He additionally gave a style of what the annual stories would come with: Apparently, the tech large obtained 51 complaints from staff within the fiscal yr ending in June, and 47 p.c of them had been substantiated. The yr earlier than that, it obtained 142 complaints.
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