Facebook Harassment Guide on Offer to Tech
The social media company is offering its U.S. policy as a model for its Silicon Valley neighbors. If staff retaliates against a co-worker who makes a harassment claim, one clause says that employees can be fired.
"Sharing best practices can help us all improve, especially smaller companies that may not have the resources to develop their own policies," Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in a joint statement with the company's vice president of people Lori Goler.
Facebook posted its policy on the company's site along with its mandatory training program and documents on managing bias.
Along with other high-profile companies in entertainment and media, tech firms and the venture capitalists that fund them have been grappling with increasingly widespread sexual harassment allegations.
A recent study by First Round Capital, a venture firm, noted that half of the staff in technology companies have either been harassed in the office or know somebody who has.
"We're very vocal with our community that if there is a hint of something, we want you to come to the resources we have with our human resources team, investigations or legal team for people to weigh into this and do something about this," Maxine Williams, Facebook's global director of diversity, told Bloomberg News in an interview on Tuesday.
