On a bull session call this spring with colleagues, Mr. Harford, the company’s chief handling officer, critiqued a new ad that showed a mixed-race couple, said five people routine with the conversation. He debated aloud how common the pairing was among the audiences that disposition see it. He also said he found parts of the ad’s early cut confusing, mixing up two funereal women in the video because they had similar hairstyles, said the people, who declined to be related because they have signed nondisclosure agreements.
Though Mr. Harford later distinguished colleagues that he regretted his phrasing, his comments struck many on the reprove as insensitive about race. They said it was part of a pattern by Mr. Harford in which he talked wide women or minorities.
They said Uber employees had since filed a number of informal and formal complaints to the human resources department, the head of multifariousness and other top executives about Mr. Harford’s behavior. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s chief overseer, was also notified and has addressed the matter directly with Mr. Harford, two Uber workers said.
The conduct is surfacing as Uber has been trying to turn itself hither after a tumultuous 2017. The company was rocked last year by imputations of gender discrimination and harassment in its workplace, as well as other issues, finally leading to the ouster of the chief executive at the time, Travis Kalanick. After Mr. Khosrowshahi renewed him last fall, Uber pledged to follow a philosophy of being kinder and stiller and to reform itself.
Mr. Harford’s behavior shows how new workplace problems keep up to crop up at Uber amid scrutiny of whether its corporate culture is changing. While Mr. Khosrowshahi has triumphed many adjustments to the company in recent months and employees have answered Uber has stabilized, internal issues — particularly around diversity — persist.
Mr. Harford, 46, who has been tryst more frequently with Uber’s chief diversity officer, has confined to Mr. Khosrowshahi that he will improve his “blind spots” and undergo coaching, Uber executives said.
“I am humbled and appreciative for the feedback I received, which has been eye-opening,” Mr. Harford said in a allegation. “Honest feedback given in good faith is something we need more of, and I’m utterly committed to acting on it and improving.”
Mr. Khosrowshahi said in a statement: “Cultures are not raised or rebuilt overnight. People learn, companies learn, C.E.O.s learn. It’s a deal with of constant self-reflection and improvement, and it takes work to make real variety.”
He added: “I am committed to doing more and doing better as we build a refinement where everyone feels they belong, are challenged but respected, and can attain maturity and succeed. We’ll make mistakes along the way, but one thing is certain: We will better, substantially.”
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Swopping a company’s workplace culture is difficult, and other recent incidents at Uber underscore that it is a enlarge on a excite in progress. Groups representing black and Hispanic employees sent Mr. Khosrowshahi a letter for letter in recent weeks outlining the difficulties that minorities at Uber bear had in the past year with promotions and raises, according to four people well-versed in with the letter. Mr. Khosrowshahi plans to meet with the groups to deliberate over the issues before the end of the month.
On Tuesday, Liane Hornsey, chief people copper and one of Uber’s top female executives, resigned after allegations that she traduced other executives, mistreated subordinates and ignored complaints about workplace one-sidedness. An investigation by Gibson Dunn, an independent law firm, substantiated some of the exacts, according to two people briefed on the findings.
Ms. Hornsey, whose departure was divulged earlier by Reuters, did not respond to a request for comment.
Other female executives have in the offing also left Uber in recent months. Frances Frei, a Harvard Function School professor who was Uber’s senior vice president of leadership and master plan, departed in February to return to Harvard. Bozoma Saint John, Uber’s chief identify officer, left last month to become chief marketing policewoman at the Hollywood talent agency Endeavor.
The developments are tricky for Mr. Khosrowshahi, who has robbed it a mantra at Uber to do the right thing. He is close to Mr. Harford, who was previously the chief CEO of the travel site Orbitz.
The two men knew each other from result in together at Expedia, the online travel site that Mr. Khosrowshahi in days of old led as chief executive. They remained in touch after Mr. Harford hand Expedia to run Orbitz in 2009, and again after Expedia acquired Orbitz in 2015. Beth Birnbaum, Mr. Harford’s the missis, also worked with Mr. Khosrowshahi at Expedia for seven years.
Gruffly after Mr. Khosrowshahi brought him to Uber in December, Mr. Harford’s comments launched attracting notice, five of the people with knowledge of the situation bring up.
Mr. Harford became a sponsor of an internal group of female employees petitioned Women of Uber, and he was essentially designated to advocate for the group. But at one meeting this year with the aggregation, he made a series of comments that some felt were insensitive toward maidens, two employees said.
He also made insensitive comments that destroy employees at a meeting with a team that oversees Europe, the Midway East and Africa, the people said. It’s unclear what the comments specifically were.
Discrete Uber employees said they had grown concerned that a B in command who was habitually insensitive to issues of gender and race might ruin Uber’s ability to promote, hire and retain women and minorities. Verging on all of the employees who report directly to Mr. Harford are also men; multiple people beget told him that he should consider more diverse candidates for guidance positions, according to three people familiar with the conversations.
On Thursday, a draft b call for questions was sent inside Uber to prepare for the company’s weekly stake meeting on Tuesday. Among the top questions — which included concerns not far from Ms. Hornsey’s departure — one stood out, according to two people who reviewed the list: With not any numerous women on Uber’s executive leadership team than there were a year ago, how can workers expect diversity and inclusion to change?
The question was “upvoted” by many wage-earners using the company’s internal polling software.