Microsoft opens a assessment of its sexual harassment insurance policies.

Microsoft has chosen a regulation agency to assessment its sexual harassment and gender discrimination insurance policies, the corporate’s board introduced on Thursday, after shareholders raised alarms about how Microsoft and Invoice Gates, one among its founders, had handled staff, particularly girls.

The board mentioned it had chosen Arent Fox, primarily based in Washington, D.C. Microsoft mentioned the agency had by no means executed employment-related work for it prior to now.

Shareholders handed a decision throughout the firm’s 2021 annual assembly to assessment the insurance policies Microsoft has in place for its staff to guard them towards abuse and undesirable sexual advances.

The decision handed with assist from virtually 78 p.c of Microsoft’s shareholders. It was the one of 5 proposals on moral points put forth by shareholders to succeed. Others, like a name for a report on race- and gender-based pay gaps on the firm and a pledge to ban gross sales of facial recognition to authorities entities, failed.

“Microsoft is below intense public scrutiny as a consequence of quite a few claims of sexual harassment and an alleged failure to deal with them adequately and transparently,” the textual content of the decision mentioned. “Studies of Invoice Gates’s inappropriate relationships and sexual advances towards Microsoft staff have solely exacerbated considerations, placing in query the tradition set by high management and the board’s function holding these culpable accountable.”

Mr. Gates solicited at the very least two staff whereas he was working Microsoft, in line with stories in The New York Occasions and The Wall Avenue Journal. In a single incident, in 2007, Mr. Gates sat by means of a presentation by a Microsoft worker, then instantly emailed her to ask for a date. Microsoft leaders later warned Mr. Gates to not do issues like that. In 2019, Microsoft’s board received a letter from an engineer claiming to have had a sexual relationship with Mr. Gates in 2000. A spokeswoman for Mr. Gates confirmed that the 2 had had an affair that “ended amicably.”

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief government, mentioned in an announcement on Thursday that office tradition was Microsoft’s “No. 1 precedence.”

“We’re dedicated not simply to reviewing the report however studying from the evaluation so we are able to proceed to enhance the experiences of our staff,” he mentioned.

Karen Weise contributed reporting.