Microsoft commissions third-party review of its harassment and discrimination policies

The image is by Alex Castro.

After years of complaints of wrongdoing at the company, Microsoft is hiring a law firm to review its policies on sexual harassment and discrimination. A public transparency report will be included in the review, which will assess the effectiveness of the company's workplace sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies.

It will include an assessment of Microsoft's previous investigation into allegations against the company's co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates. According to GeekWire, the review won't revisit Gates' affair with a company employee in 2000. Bill Gates resigned from the Microsoft board in March 2020 and left before Microsoft finished its investigation.

Microsoft will look at an internal email chain full of complaints.

Multiple allegations of discrimination and harassment were made in an internal Microsoft email chain in 2019. In an email chain, Microsoft employees complained that the company didn't take action in many cases of sexual harassment and other offensive behavior.

A five-year lawsuit over fair pay was originally filed against Microsoft. The lawsuit claimed that Microsoft discriminated against female employees because of their gender. She dropped her case in 2020, but is still fighting for fair pay in the tech industry.

Microsoft is committed to learning from the assessment so that it can continue to improve the experiences of their employees, says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a statement accompanying the announcement of the review. I embrace the opportunity to get better.

Microsoft says its review will address some issues.

It will lead to the public release of a transparency report assessing the effectiveness of the company's workplace sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies. The review will include steps the company has taken to respond to the concerns raised by employees in the "In Need of Assistance" email thread. The review will include an analysis of policies, practices, and commitments to create a safe, inclusive work environment.
The report will summarize the results of any sexual harassment investigations against members of the Board of Directors and the company's Senior Leadership Team, including the allegations that a Board committee investigated beginning in 2019.
It will look at the steps that have been taken to hold employees accountable for sexual harassment or gender discrimination.
Data on the number of sexual harassment cases investigated and their resolution will be included in the report.