Khalid Parvez, a former employee of Apple, has alleged that his decision to resign from the renowned tech company was due to inaction and lack of assistance from the company on his complaints about mental harassment, instances of Islamophobia and managerial mistakes. Khalid, who worked out of Apple’s Bengaluru office said in a LinkedIn post that following a two-month long investigation, all he received was “denial, insensitivity, and counter-accusations” from the employer relations team.
“I loved working for Apple. It helped me and my family to re-establish ourselves after my father’s demise. It made me a better professional, a better person. I ended up dedicating a third of my life to this amazing organisation,” he said in his post.
“But (first time in 11 years) I raised a grievance with HR regarding some serious accusations such as mental harassment, abusive language, a possible business misconduct, Islamophobic comments and also called out some dumb managerial errors that left me and my family living out of a suitcase for 4 months and then ended up causing a butterfly effect of mental health issues for all of us,” Khalid further said.
Khalid says when he raised the complaint, he was told to "trust the system," and was assured an investigation would take place. However his statements were disregarded, he alleged.
On the issue of Islamophobic remarks, the executive from the ER department contended that they lacked corroboration from other employees.
“Until then I assumed that my battle was against the few gentlemen that I accused. I wasn’t prepared that I would be met with some kind of legal deposition. It seemed like the ER Executive was hellbent on protecting the company and management’s interest - not the employee…This is when I understood that there was never an investigation, this was some major corporate cover up,” Khalid further said in his post.
The reason behind him resigning from the company and not choosing to fight, Khalid says, was so that he could support his family during an emergency. “I preferred to walk away as my family needed me more than my will to fight back against the corporate giant,” he said before encouraging other corporate workers to raise their voice against discrimination and to not be afraid of asking questions.