Jobs & Careers
The retail company Amazon has apologised for misrepresentations about the working conditions of its couriers. A statement on Twitter, according to which Amazon employees do not have to pee in drink bottles during their delivery rounds, has turned out to be an "own goal", the company explained in a statement and apologised.
Previously, US Congressman Mark Pocan, a representative of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives, had expressed his outrage on Twitter about Amazon couriers being forced to urinate in bottles, among other things. Amazon responded in a supposedly glib manner: "You don't really believe the thing about peeing in bottles, do you? If that were true, no one would work for us," it said in a reply to the tweet.
Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser told staff that she is banning internal video calls on Fridays, encouraging workers to set boundaries for a healthier work-life balance and instituting a firm-wide holiday called Citi Reset Day as Covid pandemic fatigue takes a toll on employees.
"When our work regularly spills over into nights, very early mornings and weekends, it can prevent us from recharging fully, and that isn't good for you nor, ultimately, for Citi," Fraser said.
The McKinsey partners have chosen a new boss. Bob Sternfels (51) will take over as head of the consultancy on 1 July this year, the company announced. Sternfels, who is a senior partner in San Francisco and heads global client relations, has primarily strengthened the firm's digital and analytical capabilities, but has also advocated for stricter risk controls in client selection, it added.
NBC News reports that Google advised employees in the US who complained about racism and sexism to take medical leave and undergo mental health counselling.
One former staff member, Benjamin Cruz, has said that they had complained to the company HR in 2019 after being told by a colleague that their skin was much darker than the co-worker expected. Google HR urged Cruz to take medical leave and tend to their mental health before moving to a new company role. Cruz went on medical leave and hoped to take the company up on its offer for a new position but was turned down from every role they applied for, so they were forced to quit.
Google denies wrongdoing and said it "rigorously" investigates complaints.
On Tuesday, Eli Lilly announced that Josh Smiley, its Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President, has resigned after an investigation revealed "inappropriate personal communications" with employees. The pharmaceutical company said an independent investigation was recently launched after being "made aware of allegations of an inappropriate personal relationship" between Smiley and an employee.
"That investigation revealed consensual though inappropriate personal communications between Mr Smiley and certain Lilly employees and behaviour that Lilly leadership concluded exhibited poor judgment by Mr Smiley," the company announced in a press release.
Employees at an Amazon logistics center in the U.S. state of Alabama want to organize themselves into a union - voting on the matter began there by mail ballot on Monday. At stake is the online retailer's Bessemer branch with about 5,800 employees, and the vote is expected to last until the end of March. If the vote is positive, it would be the first Amazon site ever to be represented by a union.
As part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Labor over allegations of systemic discrimination, Google has agreed to pay $2.59 million to more than 5,500 current employees and former job applicants.
The settlement comes after the DOL’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs found pay disparities affecting female software engineers at Google’s offices in Mountain View and offices in Seattle and Kirkland, Washington. The OFCCP also found differences in hiring rates that "disadvantaged female and Asian applicants" for engineers roles.
"The U.S. Department of Labor acknowledges Google's willingness to engage in settlement discussions and reach an early resolution," Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs Regional Director Jane Suhr said in a press release.
According to Motherboard, the US-based grocery delivery platform Instacart is laying off every employee who voted to unionize. The layoffs impact 10 unionized workers at a grocery store called Mariano’s, in addition to other Instacart employees. The group in Skokie, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, voted to unionize last year with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1546 (UFCW).
Oracle Corporation has moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas. Oracle became the latest technology company to leave California in the face of the state's higher taxes, steeper cost of living and a broader shift to remote work.
"We believe these moves best position Oracle for growth and provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work," spokesperson Deborah Hellinger told CNN Business.
Following a decrease in oil demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Exxon Mobil announced a global cut of its workforce by 15%. Around 14,000 jobs worldwide could be affected, including contractors.
Prior to the pandemic, Chief Executive Darren Woods pursued an ambitious spending plan to boost oil output in the belief a growing global middle class would demand more of its products.
The Spanish Caritas has presented a report explaining that 94% of foreigners living in the country feel welcome, while 75% of them are employed in elementary and poorly paid jobs.
The Catholic organization has stressed the need to end the social and occupational segregation of this population, which is a burden for their complete inclusion. Following the report 42% of the foreign population has been in the country for at least 15 years.
Salesforce announced it is extending the work from home policy to all 49,000 employees until at least July 31. Previously, the company guideline allowed work from home until the end of 2020.
The company also announced it is expanding benefits, offering employees an additional $250 to purchase office supplies to work from home and giving parents six additional weeks of paid time off.
The "restaurant review, restaurant discovery, food delivery and dining out transactions platform" Zomato has announced on their blog that they introduced ten days of period leaves per year for every women (including transgender people).
Following their announcement the company adjusted the average of 14 menstrual cycles per year for the probability of a menstruation cycle falling onto a weekend and decided to use ten as the number of days going forward. Per menstrual cycle, one day can be used and "should only be availed if you are really unable to attend to work".
In the announcement, the CEO and founder Deepinder Goyal also provided an email to report haressment and stated that "it is our job to make sure that we make room for our biological needs, while not lowering the bar for the quality of our work and the impact that we create".
The largest labor union in Germany, the IG Metall who represents workers from industrial jobs such as car manufacturing and is the largest industrial union in Europe, has called for a four day work week.
The transformation to electric mobility, further automation, and digitization could lead to future cuts in the workforce of the German automotive companies, fueled by the Covid-19 recession. According to the union chairman Jörg Hoffmann, a four day work week could be the answer to structural changes in the automotive industry in order to prevent future job cuts.
Major German companies such as Daimer and Bosch have already made agreements to reduce working hours in order to retain specialists but cut costs at the same time.
In the past, the CEO of Just Eat Takeaway has relied on the gig economy work model, where workers have flexible work hours but fewer or no benefits compared to regular staff, for his Takeaway.com business that he founded 20 years ago.
He has now stated that "it's our intent to not have those in Europe", referring to gig workers and added that he does not want people that deliver food from restaurants to clients to face harder working conditions.
"We want to be certain they do have benefits, that we do pay taxes on those workers" as they are "a large multinational company with quite a lot of money and we want to insure our people".
McDonald’s is suing its former CEO, Steve Easterbrook, for allegedly lying during the company’s internal probe into his behaviour. The company requires Easterbrook to return about $40 million paid to him as his exit package.
The board terminated Easterbrook in November for having a consensual relationship with an employee, but the company now alleges that the former CEO had sexual relationships with three employees in the year before his ouster.
According to the complaint, "The investigation confirmed that the alleged relationship had occurred and revealed that it had been a non-physical, consensual relationship involving texting and video calls."
Facebook has announced that it is extending its work from home policy until July of 2021 for all of its 48,000 employees. Facebook is the latest tech giant to offer prolonged remote work amid the pandemic, following Google and Twitter.
"Based on guidance from health and government experts, as well as decisions drawn from our internal discussions about these matters, we are allowing employees to continue voluntarily working from home until July 2021. In addition, we are giving employees an additional $1,000 for home office needs," so Facebook spokesperson Nneka Norville.
A study by the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen shows that public companies have 19,7 female managers. That is an increase of 0.4 percent over the previous year. So only 432 of the total of 2196 management positions in public companies are filled by women.
The study shows that on average only 22% of female applicants are placed on vacant positions.The city of Offenbach in Hesse is remarkable, as it has 56.5 percent women in the top floors of municipal companies. 1469 public companies such as public utilities or hospitals in 69 cities were examined.
A study by the University of Chicago evaluating the "economic impact of 'social distancing' measures" found that "37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home". It further found that remote jobs pay more while "lower-income economies have a lower share".