Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Google's chief executive officer Sundar Pichai sent an email to employees Thursday addressing the Mountain View, California-based company's handling of sexual misconduct and inappropriate relationships.

Pichai's email followed a report from The New York Times that alleged high-ranking men, including parent company Alphabet's CLO David Drummond, at the company faced little or no consequences for inappropriate sexual relationships with women in their departments, some of which were consensual.

The allegations indicate how power dynamics play out in the workplace

“Today's story in the New York Times was difficult to read,” Pichai said in the email. “We are dead serious about making sure we provide a safe and inclusive workplace. We want to assure you that we review every single complaint about sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct, we investigate and we take action.”

The CEO said that Google has made a number of changes in recent years to prevent sexual misconduct and encourage reporting, including a stricter stance on inappropriate conduct from those in a position of power. According to Pichai, 48 employees have been fired without an exit package for sexual harassment in the past two years, including 13 in senior manager positions or above.

He said the tech company has also updated its policy, now requiring vice presidents and senior vice presidents to disclose relationships with colleagues, regardless of whether or not the co-worker reports to them.

Deborah Rhode, the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law, the director of the Center on the Legal Profession, and the director of the Program in Law and Social Entrepreneurship at Stanford University, said that companies should avoid hard laws against workplace dating.

“If organizations take a really draconian position on this, they force the relationship under ground, and that isn't necessarily better,” Rhode said.

Drummond, who The New York Times reported had an affair with legal department colleague Jennifer Blakely during his time as GC of Google, did not report the relationship until the pair had a child in 2007. According to Thursday's report, Drummond and Blakely began dating in 2004.

Rhode said that companies should be informed of a relationship between manager and subordinates as soon as possible.

“I think you want full disclosure at the earliest possible moment and a transfer of the individual to a situation in which she is not in a reporting relationship,” Rhode said.

After Drummond informed Google of the relationship, Blakely was transferred to the sales department. She left the company a year later, with Google asking her to sign forms saying her departure was voluntary, according to The New York Times.

But Rhode said that someone signing a form isn't a sure indicator that a departure was voluntary.

Kathleen Clark, a professor of law at Washington University who teaches courses on legal ethics, said that it's also difficult to draw the line between consensual and nonconsensual relationships when office power dynamics are involved.

“To call it consensual when one of the parties is in a supervisor position over another misses the point,” Clark said. “It's a fraught situation. When it ends, if it ends, it probably will not end well for both parties as we see here. The party for whom it ended well was the party with the greater power from the beginning.”

She said that it's important for companies to have clear, consistent policies around workplace dating, so that everyone in the company knows what is and isn't allowed and the consequences of engaging in a relationship.

Employees should be aware of the policies in place and have training around sexual harassment and misconduct, she said. Clark added that, when it comes to supervisor subordinate relationships, companies may consider an outright ban because of the power dynamics in play.

“It's a bit of a dilemma how to address the situation. One can imagine addressing it by removing the subordinate, moving the subordinate to a different position but also taking some kind of disciplinary action against the supervisor,” Clark said.

She said employees should also know to whom they can report cases of harassment or misconduct.

On Thursday, Pichai said that Google created a report on internal investigations in 2015 to provide transparency about investigations into misconduct at the company.

”We are committed to ensuring that Google is a workplace where you can feel safe to do your best work and where there are serious consequences for anyone who behaves inappropriately,” he said.