Google reports little progress on diversity, high black and Latino attrition

Google’s latest diversity report, its first since the company’s controversial firing of employee James Damore, shows continued struggles in its goal to make its workforce more diverse: The number of women, black and Latinx employees rose just 0.1 percent in the past year. So the tech giant is doubling down and making changes, including making diversity and inclusion a priority for the company’s “most senior leaders,” Danielle Brown, chief diversity and inclusion officer, said in the report released Thursday. Until now, the People Operations team had the bulk of the responsibility for the effort.

A shareholder proposal to tie workforce-diversity gains to executive pay was rejected at Google’s annual meeting in early June. Google also is making public more details about its workforce representation, including by sharing attrition rates, plus data by race and gender, for the first time. Black and Latinx — a fairly new collective term for both Latinos and Latinas — employees had the highest attrition rates, respectively, so any hiring gains Google made among those groups were offset by departures from the company. “Based on employee surveys, we have learned that feeling included is associated with lower attrition for all employees, especially people of color,” Brown said in the report. “So we are accelerating efforts to ensure all Googlers—and in particular those from underrepresented groups—experience Google as an inclusive workplace.”

At the company’s recent annual shareholder meeting, Google employee Irene Knapp spoke of employees feeling “unsafe” when it comes to advocating for diversity in the workplace. “The chilling effect of harassment and doxxing has impaired productivity and company culture,” Knapp said. “Responses from HR have been inadequate, leaving minority communities unprotected.”

Last year, former Google engineer Damore wrote a memo in which he criticized the company’s diversity push and suggested that biological differences made women less suited to tech careers. He was fired and has since sued Google, accusing it of discriminating against men, conservatives and white people. According to Google’s latest diversity report, the company’s U.S. workforce is 53.1 percent white, 36.3 percent Asian, 3.6 percent Latinx and 2.5 percent black. Employees who identify as two or more races make up 4.2 percent of the workforce. Women comprise 30.9 percent of Google’s global workforce.

Google did tout gains in its leadership ranks, saying women now hold 25.5 percent of leadership positions in the company worldwide. That’s a 4.7 percent gain in the past four years. From 2017 to 2018, Google said black leadership rose from 1.5 percent to 2 percent, while Latinx leadership inched up from 1.7 percent to 1.8 percent.

https:// www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/15/google-reports-little-progress-on-diversity-high-black-and-latinx-attrition/amp/

Google updates ‘Ad Settings’ to allow users to turn off targeting signals

Google has updated its Ad Settings feature to give users more options for limiting ad personalization and is expanding the “Why this ad?” notices across all services that display Google Ads. With the changes, users can turn off some of the interest signals that Google uses for targeting ads. The options are located in the “Personal info and privacy” section of users’ account Ad Settings. The feature allows users to manage their ad settings and opt out of allowing Google to personalize ads per data it collects on users, including information based on a user’s actions, information a user has added to their Google account or data Google’s partner-advertisers have shared with Google about the user (for example, if a user has visited an advertiser’s website or signed up for a newsletter).

“This information helps make ads more relevant and useful to you. However, in the new Ad Settings, if you no longer want us to tailor your ads based on one of these factors you can choose to turn it off,” writes Google Product Manager Philippe de Lurand Pierre-Paul. Turning off an ad targeting signal will apply to Google Ads across all Google services, as well as websites and apps that run Google ads.

In addition to giving users more control over the signals used for ad targeting, Google is also expanding where its “Why this ad?” notice will show up. Now, all Google services that show Google Ads — YouTube, Google Play, Gmail, Maps and Search — will include the notice on ads, along with most all of Google’s partner websites and apps that display Google Ads.

Launched in 2011, the “Why this ad?” feature was designed to give users insight into why certain ads show up in their searches. It also provided quick access to the Ad Settings tool. These latest additions to Google’s Ad Settings follow a January update that allowed users to turn off specific advertisers via a feature called “Reminder Ads” within the Ad Settings controls. From the Reminder Ads page, users can see advertisers that are delivering remarketing ads to them and can opt to mute ads from the advertisers.

https:// searchengineland.com/google-updates-ad-settings-to-allow-users-to-turn-off-targeting-signals-300257/amp

Former Google Exec Announces $1 Billion Wage Gain Challenge

Eric Schmidt Win McNamee/Getty Images

Leadership>Companies & Executives

Former Google Exec Announces $1 Billion Wage Gain Challenge

“We encourage other investors to join us in this bold challenge to find the most successful solutions to erasing the wage gap,” said Thomas Kalil, chief innovation officer of Schmidt Futures, an investment company run by former Google executive Eric Schmidt.

Wages for the middle-class are at all-time low.

According to the Pew Research Center, the share of national income held by middle-class households has decreased to 43%—its lowest level since the center began publishing income-share data in 1967—while middle-class wages have grown just 6% and low-wage workers’ wages have decreased by 5% 1979.

In an effort to close this gap, on June 13, Jobs for the Future (JFF) and Schmidt Futures - led by former Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt - announced a new innovative competition called the $1 Billion Wage Gain Challenge to raise the wages of at least 100,000 workers by $10,000 or more by 2021.

JFFLabs, the innovation arm of JFF, will lead this ideation competition to find the nation’s most effective and promising ways to meaningfully increase annual incomes. The group also launched a new program to elevate promising work-based learning startups. JFFLabs is now accepting applications for a cohort of tech-enabled startups looking to create and scale career advancement opportunities for retail and adjacent sector workers through work-based learning strategies.

“The $1 Billion Wage Gain Challenge will spur innovative thought, share best practices, and accelerate awareness of stagnant wages,” said Maria Flynn, CEO of JFF. “Perhaps most exciting, it will materially change people’s economic well-being.”

The $1 Billion Wage Gain Challenge will launch alongside the Alliance for the American Dream, a network of four communities (each anchored by a public research university) that will provide access to capital and market for new ideas to support distressed communities locally.

In its inaugural effort, the Alliance is challenging citizens to develop policy ideas or startup concepts that increase net income for 10,000 local, middle-class households by 10% by 2020, either by raising income or decreasing the cost of living (e.g., in transportation, housing, utilities, food).

“We encourage other investors to join us in this bold challenge to find the most successful solutions to erasing the wage gap,” said Thomas Kalil, chief innovation officer of Schmidt Futures

http:// www.industryweek.com/companies-executives/former-google-exec-announces-1-billion-wage-gain-challenge