Cab-hailing platform Uber has fired 20 employees and is also improving management training, it said on Tuesday. According to a report in the Economic Times, this comes after a law firm’s investigation into sexual harassment allegations and other claims at Uber.
Uber hired Perkins Coie to look into claims of harassment, discrimination, bullying and other employee concerns. And it fired employees following the report by Perkins Coie.
ET reports that the law firm has been working in parallel with a broader investigation by former US Attorney General Eric Holder into company culture and practices.
Going back as far as 2012, Perkins Coie investigated 215 complaints against staff. While it took action in 58 cases, there was no action on 100 more. The rest are still being investigated.
Uber said that out of the 215 claims, 54 were related to discrimination, 47 related to sexual harassment, 45 to unprofessional behavior, 33 to bullying and 36 to other types of claims.
Most of the claims came from employees based at Uber's San Francisco headquarters.
Uber even told its employees that it would expand its employee relations unit to investigate claims better. It also told them that it would dramatically increase management training as most Uber managers were first-time bosses, a person familiar with the matter told ET.
Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei has been brought on board to train all managers that report to Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick. It also roped in Bozoma Saint John from Apple as the chief bran officer.
And confidential helpline for employees is also being offered by Uber so they can report concerns and has implemented a system to log and track all complaints.
The past year has been filed with controversies for the cab aggregator. Former Uber engineer Susan Fowler wrote a blogpost about sexual harassment by her manager being ignored by managers and HR officers.
Uber also was accused by Alphabet for stealing files containing trade secrets from its self-driving car division Waymo. There was also the video of Travis beating and abusing an Uber driver.