Earlier this week, it was reported that the TV presenter Piers Morgan had stepped down from his role on ITV’s Good Morning Britain following a row regarding comments he made about Meghan Markle.
His departure was announced by ITV after Ofcom said that it would investigate his comments after it received thousands of complaints from viewers, the BBC reported.
Now, a new report from the Guardian has alleged that multiple staff on the Good Morning Britain show reportedly complained to senior managers about his comments on Markle before he quit the show.
The publication reported that sources within the show’s production and editorial staff have claimed how several people inside the TV show were also uncomfortable about his intervention. Some were said to have made complaints.
One anonymous source told the publication: “Everyone is used to Piers saying things like this, but Meghan had literally said that the media wasn’t treating her fairly because of who she is, and he was just doing it again.”
Others within the programme said that the opposition to the TV presenter was “very much generational”. One said: “There has been a bit of a culture clash but it’s about that, not about his treatment of people.”
On Wednesday, Morgan told the press, as reported by The Guardian: “I don’t believe almost anything that comes out of her mouth. If I have to fall on my sword for expressing an honestly held opinion about Meghan Markle and that diatribe of bilge that she came out with in that interview, so be it.”
HR Grapevine contacted ITV for comment but did not hear back at the time of publication.
Complaints in the workplace
This isn’t the first time that staff have raised complaints against high profile members in their organisation. In 2018, around 20,000 Google staff walked out after alleged complaints to HR around the company’s handling of sexual harassment and misconduct claims were not acted upon.
A report from People Matters stated that, after around 45 staff were demoted or pushed out as a consequence of the complaints, staff were afraid to report workplace issues. One source noted that Google had what they called a “retaliation culture”.
According to Engadget, Google's VP of People Operations Eileen Naughton said, "Reporting misconduct takes courage and we want to provide care and support to people who raise concerns. All instances of inappropriate conduct reported to us are investigated rigorously, and over the past year, we have simplified how employees can raise concerns and provided more transparency into the investigations process at Google. We work to be extremely transparent about how we handle complaints and the action we take."
