On Tuesday Uber fired more than 20 employees based on reports of harassment.
The company had investigated a total of 215 harassment claims before making the terminations, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. 100 of the claims required no action, while 7 employees received written warnings from the company. 57 employees are still being reviewed, and 31 are currently in training or counseling.
In addition to sexual harassment, the claims included discrimination, unprofessional behavior, and bullying.
The claims trace back to February when former engineer Susan Fowler published a blog post accusing Uber of systemic sexism. The post explained the company’s misconduct, as well as its failure to fix its sexist issues.
According to the post, Fowler faced unwanted sexual advances from a superior at the company, and she later discovered that others had complained about similar treatment. However, Uber’s human resources and senior management did little to correct the behavior, only issuing a warning.
After Fowler made these allegations, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick hired former Attorney General Eric Holder and Tammy Albarran, partners at Covington & Burling law firm, to investigate the harassment claims. Kalanick also called on Perkins Cole law firm to join the investigation.
Perkins Cole’s investigation, which employees were briefed about on Tuesday, led to the terminations. Uber has not yet released the names or positions of the people who were fired. However, multiple senior level employees are among the terminated, according to the source.
Uber also did not release details on the Covington & Burling investigation. Employees should be briefed on its findings next Tuesday at another weekly meeting.
“They’re showing that they’re going to take some concrete steps to address the matter. This issue is going to keep being at the forefront until the investigation is completed, ” said Evan Rawley, a professor at Columbia University’s business school.
Despite these terminations, many senior employees, including heads of finance, growth, engineering, policy and communications, are leaving Uber on their own accord. VP of finance, Gautam Gupta, president of Jeff Jones, recently left the company, after working for Uber for less than a year. Anthony Levandowski, an executive at the center of Uber’s battle with Google over stolen self-driving car technology, also resigned from his position.
Nonetheless, Uber has taken several steps to clean up its image. Earlier this year Kalanick asked head of software engineering Amit Singhal to resign after learning about a sexual harassment claim at Google, Singhal’s former employer. Singhal denied the claims, but left Uber in late February.
Uber has also hired two female senior executives, former Apple Inc. executive Bozoma Saint John and Harvard Business School Professor Frances Frei, to improve its strategy and branding. Saint John will serve as chief brand officer, while Frei will serve as senior vice president for leadership and strategy.
Saint John began working for Apple in April 2014, serving as its head of global consumer marketing for iTunes and Beats Music. Before that, she was head of music and entertainment marketing for PepsiCo Inc.
She ultimately seeks to clean up Uber’s brand and make it more like Apple’s. “It’s grown so quickly in such a short amount of time – and leadership and others have been so focused on growing the business – that this very moment is about changing the image of Uber and crafting what that brand story is. That hasn’t been done yet,” Saint John told Business Insider.
Saint John will be Uber’s highest-ranking black executive.
Similarly, Frei, author of the book “Uncommon Service: How to Win By Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business,” strives to make Uber “a world-class company that can be proud of itself in the end, rather than embarrassed.”
