Uber has seen several upheavals in the past few months with several top executive employees resigning amidst many controversies. Just two months ago, Uber decided to extend its internal investigation into allegations of harassment at work.
The investigation began when a former employee Susan Fowler alleged that she was harassed when she worked for the company. She claimed that she had written to HR but had received no response. Following this, the company set up a team to investigate the matter under Arianna Huffington, a Board director. The team also comprised of US Attorney General Eric Holder and Tammy Albarran, both partners at Covington and Burling, a law firm.
Following this investigation, Holder was selected by the Uber board to formulate a detailed report regarding the culture at the workplace. The company promised to take action regarding this matter if required. The board announced today that it had unanimously voted to follow all recommendations given in the report once details are made available.
The investigation itself is extremely extensive and includes interviews and inputs from hundreds of employees of the company. The investigation into Fowler’s case and a search for similar ones revealed that at least a hundred employees were at fault. Of this hundred, 20 have been terminated while 57 are still under probing. 7 of the remaining have been issued serious, written warnings while the remaining are in counselling or training.
In order to take corrective measures to fix the system, Uber also recently hired Francis Frei from Harvard Business School as SVP of Leadership and Strategy to offer leadership support to CEO Travis Kalanick.
Following a board meeting on Sunday, a leak indicates that one of the recommendations of the report supposedly suggests that Uber SVP and Kalanick’s top aid Emil Michael should resign. Additionally, it may have been suggested that Kalanick himself should take a temporary leave of absence for three months. While the CEO himself initially told individuals he may need a break following the death of his mother in a boat accident that also sent his father to the hospital, this move could destabilise Uber’s leadership hierarchy.
A number of stories regarding the Holder report have been continuously appearing over the past week. One of these was about Eric Alexander, former president of the company’s Asia-Pacific division releasing medical reports of an Indian woman who was sexually assaulted by an Uber driver. He was removed from his post following an investigation into this matter which revealed he had shared the sensitive information with Kalanick.
On Sunday, a representative of the Board said,
The Uber Board met today with Eric Holder and Tammy Albarrán. The Board unanimously voted to adopt all the recommendations of the Holder Report. The recommendations will be released to the employees on Tuesday.
Following the release to the employees, it is expected that the recommendations of the report will also be made public information one way or another- through the company’s official accounts or through the network hat has provided all the leaks so far.
