Abstract
Across many fields, it is important to remain within the bounds of being ethical. As workers of the future, we should acknowledge the range of linguistic and educational differences among people, considering much of this when conveying our ideas to others. This assignment looks to analyze just that: the ethics of Google’s Company Code of Conduct. Were they clear with their words, concise, and used language that can be understood universally or, were they unethical, making sections vague and easily misunderstood. These are all questions that need to be addressed when considering the ethics or morality of any professional document. There should always be a thought of the audience within the minds of writers and for Google, we can see exactly what they have done.
TO: Michael Coppola, Professor
FROM: Bramhadev Emogaje, Student
DATE: February 24, 2020
SUBJECT: Ethics of The Google Code of Conduct
The company Code of Conduct at Google is very extensive ensuring the utmost respect for its customers and employees. While it is quite long, the rules outlined apply to anyone in close relation to the company, offering a fair opportunity for all. However, it is crucial to note the importance of conveying the ideas in a Code of Conduct and for Google, this can use some work. The ethics of the Code of Conduct is unfair to the reader being hard to understand and filled with unnecessary information. As someone who does not work at Google, it is difficult to make sense of what they are asking of employees. This memo will evaluate that sense of understanding and determine whether Googles Code of Conduct is ethical or not.
Through research and analysis, the Code of Conduct at any company should be very specific encompassing the many norms/practices an employee or even investor should follow. It is through this code that important information and expectations are conveyed thus, it should be written with heavy care. For some companies, it may be possible to get away with a very general code however, in the technical world it is far more important to ensure a code is written with the reader in mind. Omitting technical jargon that is hard to understand and being very specific about what is required of the employee is very important for tech companies to ensure fair competition amongst each other.
As a result, you asked that I evaluated the company Code of Conduct and report my findings. From this, it will be determined whether the Code of Conduct is ethical or not.
While reading the Code of Conduct at Google, it was clear that equality is the overarching theme however, this may have been overemphasized coming at the expense of a more general code. For example, under the “serve our users” section, it states “if something is broken, fix it”. You can’t get any more general than this. This is already unethical and makes it harder for employees to understand. What exactly is “something” and how should they go about “fixing it”? Perhaps a list of specifics stating certain problems and ways of fixing them would be helpful here. Furthermore, the dog policy at Google is certainly one of a kind. Though they claim to allow dogs in their offices, the dog policy states to review a separate “dog policy” that can only be found via third-party sites. This should never be the case and if it is, at least include the complete details under the “dog policy” section in the Code of Conduct. There’s no reason to have two policies and confuse the reader. Finally, at any company, it’s important to avoid conflicts of interest and companies typically stress this heavily in the Code of Conduct. Google, however, repeats their mistake with the dog policy. The policy states “accepting gifts, entertainment, and other business courtesies from a Google competitor… can create a conflict of interest…”. The first mistake Google makes here is not specifically saying what those “gifts” are or can be. They may claim that accepting a book/pencil violates this policy however, it is impossible for the employee to tell. The next mistake Google makes is directly related to the dog policy. Similarly, they have a separate policy titled “Google’s Non-Government Related Gifts & Client Entertainment Policy”, which is completely unnecessary. Rather than be vague in the Code of Conduct and have two different policies, simply include the details into the Code and not confuse the reader or employees. This seems to be a common trend in the Google Code of Conduct. While it is written with a general idea in mind, it is very vague and is not of much help to the employee or reader. It would be better to scrap the code altogether and combine the separate specific policies that Google has in place. This would be more specific and ethical while getting rid of the far too general Code of Conduct.
In closing, I determined that the Code of Conduct at Google is not very ethical at all. It is very vague and hard to understand as the reader and includes many unnecessary sections. I encourage you to take a look at it and would be glad to discuss it further.
Attached: Google Code of Conduct – July 31, 2018
