Microsoft's major shareholders want the company to submit a yearly report that would include details about sexual and discrimination cases.
The Microsoft investors voted in favor of passing the proposal requesting the annual report at the recent meeting despite the tech giant's recommendation to vote against it.
Microsoft to Report Harassment Cases
According to the report by The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft has been planning to disclose how it implements gender discrimination and sexual harassment policies even before the vote between the shareholders took place.
However, the tech giant did not want to reveal independent investigations into its executives, including the probe into Bill Gates. One of the proposal's main requests is the disclosure of executive-level investigations.
After the news that Bill Gates, Microsoft's CEO, and Melinda Gates were getting a divorce, reports came out accusing Bill Gates of questionable behavior.
Gates allegedly pursued women who worked closely with him at the company and their foundation. In 2019, Microsoft's board of directors opened an investigation after discovering that he had an affair with an employee 20 years ago.
Having Microsoft be transparent about the sexual harassment cases within the company was suggested by Arjuna Capital, a financial services provider.
The portfolio manager at Arjuna, Natasha Lamb, stated during the meeting that the investor is concerned about Microsoft's alleged continued sexual harassment in the workplace and its history of previous unfulfilled commitments to resolve it.
Arjuna said that reports about Gates' extramarital affair and behavior with female employees came out in 2019.
The issue questioned whether the company was protecting the culture of sexual harassment seeing how Bill Gates was protected by the board that none of his issues came out until years later.
The tech giant stated that it would comply with the request of the shareholders despite asking them to vote against the proposal.
Microsoft stated that the company would comply with the report. Brad Smith, the company president, said Microsoft would bring in a third party to assess its investigations and will share what those assessments contain.
Smith also gave a taste of what the annual reports would include. Apparently, Microsoft received 51 complaints from employees in the fiscal year ending in June, and 47% of them were substantiated. In 2020, it got 142 complaints.
Allegations on an Email Thread
In 2019, Microsoft executives talked to employees about the allegations that surfaced in an email thread about how the tech giant has mistreated women, according to CNBC.
Sexual harassment cases have been involved in the departure of executives at Amazon, Uber, and Alphabet. However, the tech giant has not connected the departures of its executives to any sexual harassment cases.
According to Quartz, an employee pointed out harassment cases in the group that was working on Microsoft's Azure public cloud.
A Microsoft spokesperson said that the tech giant has addressed the email and has since talked to the employees involved.
In 2015, former Microsoft employee Katie Moussouries filed a lawsuit against the company that alleged Microsoft had a continuing policy, pattern, and practice of sex discrimination against female employees in technical and engineering roles concerning performance evaluations, promotions, pay and other terms and conditions of employment.
In 2016, Microsoft launched a tool that will detect discrimination and a tool that will combat online abuse.
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Written by Sophie Webster
