Google's Healthcare Sister Company Verily Suspends Bonuses Mid-Pandemic to Fund Diversity Programs

According to a recent report, Google’s sister company Verily Life Sciences has suspended employee spot bonuses for the remainder of 2020, redirecting money into diversity and inclusion programs much to the anger of many employees.

A recent report from Business Insider states that Google’s sister company Verily Life Sciences has suspended the payment of employers spot bonuses for the rest of the year and is redirecting money that would be used for bonuses to diversity and inclusion programs.

Verily employees were reportedly told last week that the spot bonus money would be subsidizing the company’s internal “product inclusion group” as well as other social justice programs such as clinical trial recruitment of underrepresented populations, according to Business Insider.

According to leaked internal memos, employees at the company are angered by the decision with some stating that it devalued their colleagues’ hard work and long hours during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. The employees also argued that redirecting bonus money to diversity initiatives implied that the programs were low priority to Verily and not deserving of their own budgets.

In a letter to management, Verily employees asked that the spot bonuses be reinstated, saying: “These programs should be invested in their own right given our strong financial position.” Employees asked Verily’s upper management to provide company milestones for all of its diversity and inclusion efforts and to fund them directly rather than using money from bonuses and other departments.

Employees stated: “The use of spot bonuses to subsidize social justice programs such as Healthy@Work for HBCUs [Historically Black colleges and universities], clinical trial recruitment of underrepresented populations, and an internal Product Inclusion group implies that these efforts are charity causes not worthy of their own investment.”

Verily spokesperson Carolyn Wang commented on the situation stating:

One of our company values is ‘Do More Good’ and we’re constantly looking for ways to put this into action and to be responsive to the broader environment around us.

At this time, we think it’s important we put our money where our mouth is, and direct some of our discretionary funds — such as those typically used to fund a spot bonus program (which is separate and distinct of our annual bonus program) — to bolster our efforts to ensure our products and services are accessible to the people who need them. This requires making a few small sacrifices, but why wouldn’t we do that?

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