> Offer to relocate the employee first?
To Gaza? That's an interesting idea, but I don't think it'd work out very well.
> Remind employees they can work in other areas?
I don't think somebody who can't figure that out by themselves is really a very valuable asset. But also I don't think that's the problem. The person did that not because they weren't aware there are other people in Google working on other things - literally everybody is aware on that. They didn't just requested a transfer to another group. They staged a protest because they wanted to influence Google's decisions by publicly threatening the withdrawal of their contribution. Turns out, Google is ok with that scenario. When you bluff, you should always consider what happens if you're called.
> Google had shutdown the private forum without a proper discussion
As I understand, the reverse had happened - the forum was overflown with the inflammatory activist messaging having no relation to the topic it has been created for, and had to be shut down, because it could no longer serve the function it was created for. "Proper discussion" has never been the activists' intent (and in general, experience teaches us these kinds of activists are a lot more into shutting down and deplatforming opponents than properly debating them). Not that Google has ever lately been on the frontlines of enabling proper discussion - as most major tech companies, they have abandoned this idea years ago in favor of serving as a gatekeepers and the pretorian guard - but in this particular case, it seems to be pretty clear no proper discussing was intended.
> What if they were denouncing racism?
What if Google was literally run by Hitler? You can always make an inflammatory hypothetical. But I don't see much point in discussing it - there's an infinite things that could happen, you can't discuss them all. Better to concentrate on things that are actually happening.