The Inside Story

With so much attention on social media, internal communication is often overlooked in today’s corporate America.

But company executives are now facing a growing trend of activism among employees in Silicon Valley, where there is fierce competition for programming talent. Signed petitions are protesting the way technology products are used by the U.S. government.

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Bloomberg reports that San Francisco-based cloud firm, Salesforce is the latest to be hit by internal protest over government work. More than 650 Salesforce employees have signed a petition asking the company to cut ties with the US Customs and Borders Protection. “Given the inhumane separation of children from their parents currently taking place at the border, we believe … Salesforce should reexamine our contractual relationship with CBP and speak out against its practices.”

In response, a spokeswoman for the company said, “One of the greatest things about being part of the Salesforce family is that we proudly foster an open exchange of ideas and dialogue.”

After the news media revealed that immigrant families at the border were being separated, more than 100 Microsoft employees signed a petition demanding the company cut ties with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Microsoft’s Azure cloud software has a role in enabling ICE to deliver services like accelerating facial recognition and identification.

Additionally, Amazon employees sent a letter asking CEO Jeff Bezos to end contracts with government agencies seeking to use the company’s controversial facial recognition software.

Internal communication

And while giant government contracts are typically the aim of many companies, employee and public backlash can cause it to misfire.  Following the resignation of about a dozen employees, Google cancelled renewal of its controversial contract with the Pentagon of its drone warfare initiative, Project Maven.
“The resigning employees’ frustrations,” according to BuzzFeed “range from particular ethical concerns over the use of artificial intelligence in drone warfare to broader worries about Google’s political decisions. And the erosion of user trust that could result from these actions. They say that executives have become less transparent with their workforce about controversial business decisions and seem less interested in listening to workers’ objections than they once did.”
Bottom line: Corporations need to consider their relationships with governmental agencies in a broader social context and their internal communications with employees in regard to these relationships or risk employee unrest.