Can you control your staff when they make social and political protests?
Employers are grappling with a new workplace issue — staff who want to use the power of the company to change the world.
Companies have been wary of activism in the workplace ever since union delegates stalked the factory floor checking on conditions, monitoring demands on workers and angling for ways to get a wage rise. But at least they knew what the union wanted.
Today, workplace activism might involve a junior staffer posting online about the use of plastics in the office, an assistant organising a walk for climate action, a group of mid-tier executives campaigning for gender equity or a supply chain clerk agitating about pens imported from an undesirable country or sales to a government department involved in controversial projects. One might even be objecting to the Christmas tinsel.
The publication HRDirector has already labelled the 2020s as the decade of employee activism and many organisations are beginning to understand how common and varied the actions are and what it might cost them in reputation and revenue. And they’re worried.
According to a global survey of 375 executives done last year by the law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, 85 per cent of Australian organisations expect workplace activism to increase and they think the protests will be around automation, AI, diversity, surveillance, pay and corporate strategy. In most other countries corporate social responsibility was named as the top trigger. This past year many of America’s biggest companies have been blindsided by employees taking a stance on corporate business activities.
This was most pronounced when the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement began separating parents from children on the Mexican border. In retaliation, employees of Microsoft and McKinseys campaigned to cancel contracts with the agency and staff at a furniture company, Wayfair, downed tools over the company supplying chairs to the agency.
Employee protests have also surrounded the Black Lives Matter campaign (including salaried sports players taking the knee); episodes of sexual harassment in the workplace (Google staff did a walkout over this) and the catwalk protests at the Oscars by celebrities avowing animal rights, politics and the lack of diversity at the Oscars, including Natalie Portman’s black cape inscribed with overlooked women directors.
The new agitator at work might not carry a union account and is less likely to belong to a political party but she probably wields a Twitter account and she knows how to go viral. Did we mention that she’s most likely young? A study done by communications firm Weber Shandwick last year found that almost half of Millennials supported workplace activism compared with 33 per cent of Gen X and 27 per cent of Baby Boomers.
The Weber Shandwick report concludes that younger workers are switched on to technology that creates networks and has proven a powerful medium for change. While many protests are physical and some are theatrical, the most common tool is social media. Employees, present and past, use social media sites, internal messaging, corporate blogs and review sites to make their voices heard.
Moreover, they are centring their campaigns on corporations rather than other institutions because they believe that corporations have the power to change the world and should use that power. Indeed, they believe corporations are bigger change agents than either politicians, journalists or religious leaders.
Companies might have themselves to blame here because for the last decade, they’ve been inviting young recruits to bring their passion and purpose to work. The Millennials bought their passion and their proverbial placards to work but they also bought an expectation that if the values don’t align, the company should change its values.
Even though companies expect this activism to increase and, according to the Herbert Smith Freehills study, a quarter say it will impact their revenue, most are struggling to manage the new threats to revenue and reputation. Earlier this year, the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism surveyed hundreds of PRs and found that almost 70 per cent of the people in charge of corporate messaging admitted they weren’t totally prepared to deal with it.
The corporate response is complicated by the fact that more companies are taking positions on social matters themselves — witness Qantas’s support of gay marriage, insurance companies advocating for climate action, Rugby Australia’s stance on Israel Folau’s comments on homosexuality and the sponsors who have decided that Pete Evans’ nefarious notions don’t suit their image. Sometimes, the activists are in the boardroom and employees have to negotiate around them.
While many of the headline stoushes have occurred in large public organisations, smaller businesses are also dealing with the clash of values on the factory floor.
In the lead-up to Christmas, a Sydney law firm was surprised by a staff member who decided that a law firm should not be celebrating a particular religious event and therefore the Christmas party should be restyled as an end-of-year party. Sad Santa was given the sack, the tinsel was tucked away and it wasn’t a very merry end of year party.