Google’s head of Human Resources, Eileen Naughton is stepping down later this year amid rising tensions between the company’s top executives and rank and file employees.
Eileen Naughton has been at the company for 14 years, four of which have been as Vice President of People Operations, has had to deal with intensifying employee anger over the company’s alleged handling of sexual harassment claims, the firing of employees who organized protests against the company, and the elimination of weekly all-hands meetings at which employees confronted executives about sensitive topics (the meetings are now monthly, and the permitted topics are limited).
In a statement, Naughton said that after six years in London and San Francisco, she and her husband had decided to return home to New York “to be closer to our family”.
Sundar Pichai, Chief Executive, credited her with making “major contributions to the company in numerous areas”, and added: “We’re grateful to Eileen for all she’s done and look forward to her next chapter at Google.”
She took over the job from Laszlo Bock, who over the previous decade had made Google a by-word for the way Silicon Valley companies both pampered their workers and sought to inspire them with invocations to “change the world”.
The switch coincided with growing tensions inside the company, as workers who had been attracted by Google’s idealistic aspirations balked at initiatives such as a proposal to launch a censored search engine in China, as well as selling AI for US defence department drones.
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