The Demonization of DEI: 10 Questions About What Went Wrong and What Happens Next
BY the Editors February 11, 2025When disaster strikes, the traditional way for leaders to respond is to mourn the victims, praise the first responders, and call for patience while experts figure out the cause. But in America’s culture wars, such forbearance is gone. One common suspect is targeted in calamity after calamity: the pursuit of diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, the relatively recent approach to addressing inequities and structural racism going back centuries in the U.S.The accusations have become reflexive. Anti-DEI activists and politicians have blamed DEI for the tragic airborne collision in Washington, D.C., the California wildfires, a toxic train derailment, a major bridge collapse, the Silicon Valley Bank failure, and more. No evidence has emerged to support those theories, yet the rising chorus of accusations have turned DEI into a radioactive term. The assault reached a crescendo last month when President Trump veered from somber, prepared remarks about the DC tragedy into a half-hour attack on “woke” elements and diversity as the underlying cause. How could he prove the connection? “It just could have been,” he said. “Because I have common sense. OK? And unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.” His supporters have been more explicit, making the case that competent white males have been overlooked in favor of incompetent DEI hires, an alleged pattern of reverse discrimination.While the backlash against DEI has been building for more than two years, the momentum picked up steam when the president launched his second term with a sweeping attack on DEI in the federal government, academia, the scientific community, corporate America, and beyond. Calling DEI “nonsense,” Trump told financial leaders at Davos last month that “America will once again become a merit-based country.”Wielding his executive power over the federal workforce, which employs more than 3 million people, Trump ordered all DEI-focused offices to shut down, put their workers on leave, and ordered them to report any coworkers trying to “disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language.” Failure to do so “may result in adverse consequences,” the administration told workers, which created a prospective new persona: the DEI snitch. Workers were told to scrub personal-pronoun preferences from their email signatures, and the Pentagon announced that the military would no longer “use official resources” to celebrate commemorations like Black History Month.How did the cause of DEI become vulnerable to such vehement and often misleading attacks that even many of its advocates are losing the will to fight? Why are some major corporations backing away from their wholehearted embrace of DEI, while others are sticking to their commitments? Can advocates of DEI learn from its excesses and pursue their principles by other terms or other means? Should the term DEI simply be dropped?These questions need to be energetically explored, since the war on DEI has created a perilous landscape for HR leaders and corporate America in general. Companies will have to balance stakeholder interests, employee expectations, legal vulnerabilities, and their public reputation. They need to consider the impact of their DEI-policy decisions on recruiting and employee engagement, especially among younger and more diverse workforces who may view such retreats as a step backward. As we head into four years of a new administration that’s bent on escalating the backlash, how should HR leaders continue to build inclusive organizations? From Day One asked experts and sampled the latest surge in reporting on the DEI wars. Among the issues:Which employers are backing away from their DEI commitments, and why?In the racial-justice movement that arose after George Floyd’s death in May 2020, corporate America rushed to build programs and put money behind the cause of DEI. Yet within three years, the zeal flagged in the face of a U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action in higher education, attacks and lawsuits by anti-DEI activists, and financial constraints. Many DEI advocates questioned whether corporations were ever really committed, but the headwinds became undeniable.And the threats keep growing. Many types of DEI programs could draw new lawsuits accusing them of “illegal D.E.I.,” a term that has caused widespread confusion and has lawyers scrambling to interpret what it might mean. “We’re in a brave new world. People are freaked out,” Jon Solorzano, a lawyer who counsels corporations on DEI, told the New York Times.The trigger effect: Among President Trump’s barrage of executive orders was one that struck down a 1965 executive order by LBJ banning discrimination by federal contractors, which had inspired them over the decades to set up programs favoring marginalized workers and subcontractors. Trump’s executive order tells each federal agency to identify “up to nine potential civil compliance investigations” for companies pursuing such practices, like giving jobs or promotions to specific groups based on their race. No company wants to be among the nine called out.Even before this new legal threat, a parade of household-name companies had publicly dialed back their DEI efforts. Walmart, Ford Motor, Lowe’s, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, Amazon, Google, Target, and others have all announced cutbacks. Among the programs: DEI spending, labeling, diversity goals, and participation with partners who monitor DEI progress. While not long ago companies were often accused of “rainbow-washing,” or being performative about their commitments to DEI, now they’re “rainbow-hushing” by cutting or reframing their DEI programs.Walmart, which employs 1.6 million workers in the U.S., said it won’t renew a racial-equity center that was established through a five-year, $100 million philanthropic commitment from the company. Ford told employees it will no longer participate in an annual survey from an LGBTQ advocacy group, the Human Rights Campaign. After showing little reluctance to support DEI causes in recent years, many corporate leaders now tend to acknowledge that they’re feeling the heat. “We are mindful that our employees and customers hold a wide range of beliefs,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told employees in an email. “The external and legal environment related to political and social issues continues to evolve.”Which companies are sticking with their commitments—and why?Costco, which ranks No. 11 on the Fortune 500 and has more than 300,000 workers, has made headlines by bucking the trend. Its board of directors unanimously urged its shareholders to vote against a proposal by a conservative think tank that would require Costco to issue a report on the financial risks of maintaining its DEI program. The group criticized Costco “for possible ‘illegal discrimination’ against employees who are ‘white, Asian, male, or straight,’” as CNN reported.Costco’s response, in a statement to investors, echoed what many corporations has given as the purpose behind their DEI support: “Among other things, a diverse group of employees helps bring originality and creativity to our merchandise offerings, promoting the ‘treasure hunt’ that our customers value. We believe (and member feedback shows) that many of our members like to see themselves reflected in the people in our warehouses with whom they interact.”Apple, too, pushed back against a similar proposal. DEI hasn’t been a passing fancy for the company. Apple has had a supplier-diversity program since 1993, hired its first VP of DEI in 2017, and among its employees now has 67 “diversity network associations.” Apple said the proposal “inappropriately attempts to restrict” and “micromanage” the company.Speaking at Davos, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said, “We are going to continue to reach out to the Black community and Hispanic community, LGBT community, and the veteran community. ... Now if you point to something we’re doing that’s wrong, I’d change it. But we’re very proud of what we’ve done, and what we’ve done is lift up cities, schools, states, hospitals, countries, companies, and we’re gonna do more of the same.”Yet it was the National Football League that delivered the most well-timed defense of its DEI programs: on the eve of the Super Bowl. While the NFL had struggled to navigate the politics of Black Lives Matter and earlier social-justice waves, it more solidly committed after the murder of George Floyd. “We got into diversity efforts because we felt it was the right thing for the National Football League, and we're going to continue those efforts because we've proven to ourselves that it does make the NFL better,” the league’s commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters. “We're not in this because it's a trend to get into it or a trend to get out of it.” In terms of hiring decisions, he added, “There are no quotas in our system. This is about opening that funnel and bringing the best talent into the NFL.”Did DEI advocates overreach—and how?While standing up for their basic values, many DEI advocates admit that the cause committed some self-sabotage. “Undoubtedly, there has been ham-fisted DEI programming that is intrusive or even alienating, making workers feel that they are being told what to think or how to feel. But, for the most part, it is a relatively benign practice meant to increase diversity, while also sending a message that workplaces should be fair and open to everyone,” writes Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a professor of African-American Studies at Princeton, in the New Yorker.Indeed, many experts in the field of corporate training say that part of the DEI backlash was triggered by poorly designed programs and overly righteous practitioners, not core values. “You cannot be inclusive by being exclusive and the way DEI has been operationalized over the last few years gives the appearance of being exclusive, rather than common-sense principles that uplift everyone,” Janine Yancey, CEO and founder of Emtrain, told From Day One.The current DEI movement gained momentum after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. A memorial to police-shooting victims sprang up near the site of his death in Minneapolis (Photo by Stephen Koepp/From Day One)“The current model of diversity needs a shift,” said Stefanie Christmas, global head of DEI for Inizio, a Dublin-based, life-sciences company. “We’ve defined it too narrowly, associating it only with ‘minorities’ instead of embracing the full spectrum of human differences. This leaves many—especially straight, cisgender men—feeling they have nothing to contribute.”“Decades of research shows clear problems with status-quo DEI,” writes inclusion strategist Lily Zheng in Harvard Business Review. “Despite their widespread prescription, DEI trainings often fail to change bias or reduce prejudice. Popular strategies for communicating the value of DEI can paradoxically both hurt marginalized communities and decrease leadership support for DEI. Common initiatives intended to create better workplaces for all might instead activate backlash, increase burnout, and fail to improve outcomes for underserved groups. DEI needs a reset,” wrote Zheng, who offers a prescription for responding to the backlash.What is the continued rationale for keeping up the fight for DEI programs?Backing up their DEI initiatives, organizations typically have made both a moral case (it’s socially just) and an economic case (it’s good for business), in various measure and emphasis, but always with a sense of inevitability about it. “Saying diversity is dead is like saying gravity is ending. Ridiculous,” said a diversity professional who didn’t want to be quoted by name given the crossfire of the moment. “Ask yourself, ‘Are you building the types of teams that are better for business?’ Managers are underprepared to get the best work out of diverse employees, whether we’re talking about neurodiversity, gender, LGBTQ+, accessibility. Most employers know they need to do and say the right things to keep and attract those new generations. It’s a math problem, a business issue, a growth issue.”Surveys of the workforce indicate steadfast support for DEI issues, despite the blitz coming from Washington. “Continuity of DEI as a value driver in the workplace doesn’t make the news. Pushback is part of the news cycle, but the commitment to DEI endures,” said Ripa Rashid, managing director of Seramount, which advises companies on building more inclusive workplaces. According to Seramount’s nationally representative 2024 survey of more than 3,000 U.S. white-collar and frontline employees across dimensions of diversity, geography, and political affiliation, 76% of employees agreed with the statement: “I am committed to helping my company fight racism and injustice within the organization” and 78% indicated that it is “very important” for their company to be an inclusive organization.The pronounced whiplash in corporate support for the LGBTQ+ community strikes some experts as financially self-defeating. “Inclusion is a driver of the business. Those businesses backing away from their support of the LGBTQ+ community will fall behind their competition who continue to show up for the community, Mita Mallick, author of Reimagine Inclusion: Debunking 13 Myths To Transform Your Workplace, told From Day One. “According to LGBT Capital, the estimated purchasing power of the global LGBTQ+ community is $4.7 trillion. Belief-driven buying consumers are on the rise, and they will continue to vote with their wallet and walk away from brands and companies they feel no longer match their values.”Did DEI programs make any measurable progress toward their own stated goals?Not all that much, at least in numerical terms, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of 13 million workers at S&P 500 companies. In the four years since George Floyd’s murder launched the wave of DEI programs, “the workforces of the biggest public companies have become slightly less white, and Asian and Hispanic employees have made modest games,” reported the Journal. “The picture is more lopsided in the upper ranks of these companies. White men have lost a little ground but still occupy half of all senior manager roles. White women—a bigger focus of corporate diversity efforts before 2020—have experienced the least change since then. The share of senior managers who aren’t white, meanwhile, rose to 26% from 22%.”Amazon, which said in a memo to employees in December, that it’s halting some of its DEI efforts, has one of the most diverse workforces, the Journal noted. With hundreds of thousands of workers in warehouses and other operations, “about 69% of its roughly 1 million workers were people of color in 2023, compared with nearly 67% in 2020,” the Journal said. Though its senior management remains largely white, “Amazon embarked on a pandemic hiring spree and made a push to hire more Black executives into high-level roles. Over four years, the share of nonwhite senior managers nearly doubled, with those of Asian descent rising the most.”And at the top of the C-suite, the number of women CEOs running Fortune 500 companies was at 52 last year, more than double the number of six years ago—and a 2,500% increase from 1998, when only two Fortune 500 companies were led by women. One of the current women CEOs, Citigroup’s Jane Foster, is making a case for sticking with inclusive policies that benefit everybody, such as flexible work schedules and parent-friendly policies.Can DEI programs avoid the flak and focus their mission by changing their terminology?Many companies have shifted from standard DEI terminology to focus more on terms like just inclusivity and belonging, with the implication that no employee is left behind. This is reflected in job titles as well. For example, top leader Mark Brown of Starbucks, who has a background in both talent acquisition and DEI, since 2023 has carried the title of SVP of global talent and inclusion. “We want to represent the communities that we serve, and we want to innovate for all our different audiences,” he told a From Day One audience last year. “And if we don’t have more voices in the conversation and more backgrounds in the conversation, we can’t continue to create a sense of belonging and warmth in our stores, which is core to what we do.”Of course, anti-DEI advocates are wary of organizations doing a rebranding of such efforts without a more wholesale capitulation to dumping DEI, hence the warning from the Trump administration to anyone who might “disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language.”Despite the high-profile statements from famous companies, however, surveys of U.S. corporations taken in recent months indicate that “these programs aren’t dying; they’re morphing,” according to DEI legal experts Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, writing in the Los Angeles Times. “The ‘DEI in the dustbin’ narrative is utterly unsupported by the data. The companies that have formally backed away from their diversity programs represent a tiny minority of corporate America. The conservative Heritage Foundation recently conceded that 486 out of the Fortune 500 still have inclusion statements or commitments on their websites,” they write. “This data jibes with our experience as scholars who study DEI. A vast majority of the hundreds of major organizations with which we have interacted over the last year or two are still deeply committed to these values. They are just doing the work more quietly and carefully than before, to avoid unwanted scrutiny and lawsuits.”What can DEI advocates do better, by whatever name they go by?Many DEI advocates assert that workforces and other communities need to dig even deeper into emthathy and brave conversations, rather than retreating into opposite camps based on identity or political affiliation. “If DEI reframes to focus on everyone's consciousness and intentionality—thinking about what each person needs to feel respected and a sense of belonging so they can deliver their best work—that gets the behaviors needed to foster DEI,” said Emtrain’s Yancey.“To create change, we need to highlight—through personal stories and self-reflection— privilege’s sliding scale and the impact of exclusion,” said Inizio’s Christmas. “Once people can understand what it feels like to lack privilege or be excluded, they’re more likely to empathize with other marginalized communities and drive real change.”Are liberals and progressives all on the same page in advocating DEI programs?No, a thoughtful cohort of thinkers and leaders on the left are skeptical of DEI programs, saying they’re a distraction from attacking economic inequality—and sometimes even get in the way. People in this camp “prefer activism that focuses on class rather than racial or gender and sexual identity. They tend to see labor unions and worker-led organizing as a more effective solution to inequality,” writes labor journalist Noam Scheiber in the New York Times.Faiz Shakir, a Democratic activist and former manager of Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, told Scheiber that DEI programs often serve to divide the working class and “soften the actual confrontation with corporate power we need in society.” Workplace DEI policies essentially buy off workers on the cheap, he said, adding: “You get a penny for your efforts. A little trinket here or there, that should mollify you.” In that view, DEI is essentially a tool of management, rather than one that empowers employees.What are the stakes in terms of who else is hurt when DEI programs are dropped?The case has been made that the fallout will affect people ranging from women and minority contractors to rural poor communities. In late January, Target announced that it was concluding its three-year DEI goals and its Supplier Diversity team would be renamed Supplier Engagement. Pernell. “The announcement from Target, just a week before the start of Black History Month, hit Black entrepreneurs particularly hard. The company had created an infrastructure that helped Black-owned start-ups even before the 2020 protests, [coffee entrepreneur Pernell] Cezar said, and then set a goal of featuring about 500 Black-owned brands in its stores by the end of this year,” the New York Times reported. Since the entrepreneurs behind such startups tend to have less startup capital and fewer connections than their competitors, “It’s definitely the wild, wild West of the haves and have-nots if you don’t have institutional knowledge,” Cezar said.One of Trump’s executive orders also took aim at “environmental justice,” eliminating positions and assessing spending on projects, including those aimed at poor, rural communities, CNN reported. The order cancelled many financial grants designed to help small communities, including everything from wastewater-treatment plants to tornado shelters for schools in poor communities. The thinking behind such grants is that the effects of climate change fall disproportionately on poor communities. “Environmental justice is not affirmative action. It’s not DEI [to have] the right to breathe clean air, drink clean water and the right to have environmental laws to be enforced equally across the board,” said Robert Bullard, an environmental-justice pioneer.Employers, too, could face legal trouble from abandoning DEI principles by exposing themselves to more discrimination lawsuits by workers, experts said. While reverse-discrimination lawsuits do occur, they’re vastly outnumbered by those filed by members of marginalized communities. “Many common corporate policies that fall under the DEI umbrella, such as auditing pay practices, requiring diverse pools of job candidates, and ensuring that promotions are awarded fairly, are crucial tools for employers to ensure compliance with state and federal laws banning workplace discrimination,” lawyers and other experts told Reuters.Will corporate American start to deny diversity, either as a fact or value?Even the statements by leaders whose companies announced pullbacks in DEI programs seemed to be hedging their bets, from leaders of Tractor Supply Co. to Meta, the parent of Facebook. In a companywide meeting after Meta ended its DEI and fact-checking programs, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sought to reassure his workforce that the company’s values hadn’t changed, despite the new regulatory regime in Washington. “I mean, it’s a little crazy that we need to say this,” Zuckerberg said. “We continue to believe that diversity is a strength.”Reported by Jenny Sucov, independent journalist, and Stephen Koepp, editor-in-chief of From Day OneFor further reading, here's a selection of more than 200 stories on DEI by From Day One.(Featured photo by FG Trade/iStock by Getty Images)
When Disaster Strikes: How HR Leaders Can Help Employees Recover
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza and Erin Behrens January 17, 2025Until not long ago, corporations thought mainly of themselves and their operations when it came to natural disasters, focusing on their business-continuity plans (BCPs). But the Los Angeles fires, the pandemic, and other recent calamities have persuaded employers to build the well-being of their workers and their communities into those plans and responses as well. The Los Angeles fires that began in early January have decimated entire communities, killed more than two dozen people, and displaced more than 180,000 people. Companies including Netflix, Disney, Google, and NBCUniversal have collectively pledged tens of millions of dollars in the form of donations and relief programs for their employees and local citizens affected by the destruction. Among the creative ways to help: Disney opened up its wardrobe warehouse to offer clothing to employees and their families who lost their homes. With natural disasters becoming more frequent, employers are cementing their role in disaster-relief efforts as part of their increasingly holistic support of employees in their lives outside the workplace, offering programs ranging from mental healthcare to financial well-being programs. The overall goal: to be a source of stability in times of turmoil. From Day One asked HR leaders and benefits providers how they’re stepping in to help, and what others can do to pitch in. Their responses:Prioritize Employee Safety and Basic NeedsFirst, ensure employees can evacuate safely, have food and water, and can find a place to stay. Those immediate needs are what Jolen Anderson, chief people officer at the coaching platform BetterUp, calls “level one.” Employers themselves aren’t often capable of furnishing these things directly, but they can connect employees with disaster relief organizations that are ready to help.The emergency-grant platform Canary helps with immediate needs, including temporary housing, food, or lost income. “We are able to stand up new programs for companies and their affected employees very quickly in response to events like the LA wildfires,” said Canary’s head of marketing, Catherine Scagnelli. For DoorDash, Canary created a relief specifically for Dashers affected by the fires in LA, and Canary is extending opportunities to qualify as the disaster continues and many are unable to work.Reach Out to Employees Affected“Show up with empathy and understanding of what’s happening across your organization,” said Anderson. These messages of support should come from both HR and line managers, who are closer to individual workers and their needs. Executives can do the same. Disney CEO Bob Iger told the New York Times that he’s been calling employees affected by the fire, saying, “I want them to know that people at the top of the company are looking after them, that we care.”Tap All Your Benefits ProvidersChristopher Smith, VP of benefits at Universal Music Group, whose HQ is in Santa Monica, told From Day One he and his team are combing through every benefit and program they offer. “I am diving into all of our benefits, carriers, vendors, and partners, and saying, ‘What can we do? What phone numbers can we provide?’ It may not be a benefit, per se, but what resources can we put forward that can help people and potentially save lives? When you look at it from that angle, you become very creative.”Assets like “EAPs, well-being coaching, and time off” that companies can directly supply are what Anderson at BetterUp calls “level two” resources.Establish Clear Communication ChannelsMake a plan to communicate with your employees about where they can find help. Aggregate and organize a list of websites, portals, phone numbers, and relief organizations, and include company paid time off and leave policies. Make the list available to the entire organization so employees who are affected know what’s available–and those who aren’t directly affected can help get their colleagues back on their feet.One CEO told Employee Benefits News that her company, Emergenetics, is using every form of communication possible–like phone trees, text messaging, and internal platforms–to stay in touch with their workers. “Create an email address for inquiries related to the wildfires, so you can build a repository of questions, which helps build internal FAQs that can be continually updated as the situation evolves,” she said.Jerome Krausse pushes his mother-in-law in a shopping cart as they evacuate from their home in the Pacific Palisades after a wildfire swept through their neighborhood. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)Equip Your Employees to Help Each OtherEmployees not affected by the disaster may be eager to step up and help their colleagues. HR can point them toward disaster relief organizations and donation funds as well as programs for donating paid time off.E4E Relief, which provides emergency financial relief to workers through their employers and colleagues, is currently working with companies including Disney to get financial grants distributed to those affected by the wildfires, and help their colleagues contribute to the relief efforts.Make Mental Healthcare Readily AvailableMental healthcare resources are key for employees who experience climate disasters, who can suffer lingering effects. Mental health first aid in the form of EAPs or counseling is a quick way to supply help quickly, but employers should also prepare for future needs.Jyoti Mishra, associate director at the University of California Climate Change and Mental Health Council, has studied the effects of wildfires on mental health. The impacts can last for years, according to her research, and those who experience fire disasters have higher levels of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress. “Our work has shown that it’s hard to pay attention to a singular thing when everything around you feels like it’s threatening you.” she said in an interview with CNN.BetterUp’s Anderson recommended that employers train managers to have conversations with their employees about what they need. And Duke University professor of psychiatry Robin Gurwitch told EBN that “employee resource groups, training leadership in psychological first aid, and other types of company-based programs can make a difference in how employees get through and recover from their ordeal.”Remember That Families Are ConnectedEven if your employees aren’t located in the Los Angeles area, they may have family and friends who are. Give your staff the time, space, and resources to help their loved ones. “Although our systems tell us who may be individually impacted, I don’t necessarily know who has a family home in that area, who has grandparents in that area, who has extended relatives in that area, or who has friends in that area,” Anderson said. She taps line managers for this information.Use What You HaveCompanies can use the resources and real estate they already have to support their staff and community members. Gap Inc. worked with DirectRelief to provide free N95 masks at brick-and-mortar stores across Los Angeles County, and Starbucks is handing out free coffee to first responders.Know Your Lane, Respect Your Limits Britt Barney, the head of client success at the financial-wellness platform Northstar, has been working with her team to gather resources for their clients in the wake of the LA fires. In the short-term, she said, people need help filing insurance claims and finding temporary housing. That’s not something her company can help with directly, but because Northstar can see all the benefits available to their clients’ employees, “what we can do is help people understand what benefits they have access to,” whether that’s mental health or short-term leave or backup childcare. Barney said her company is getting ready to provide services down the road, like helping people access their emergency funds, rework their budgets, and find the money they need through assets like company equity. “In the long term, people are going to need a ton of financial help,” she said.Prepare for Next Time“Given recent times, organizations have had to develop a playbook on how they approach these situations,” BetterUp’s Anderson said. Such playbooks and disaster readiness plans are cross-functional projects, requiring HR, communications, legal, and business leaders to ensure employees are kept safe and the business can function.“The evidence supporting corporate leaders’ being proactive, which we see again and again, is the volume of inbound requests just after a disaster has devastated a community,” said Matt Pierce, CEO of E4E Relief. “The Los Angeles wildfires represent the most recent example, but our team fields these inquiries from all over the world regularly.”Anderson reminds employers that these plans have to be tested with tabletop exercises and scenario planning. “Your managers have been empowered and enabled with the right sense of empathy and resiliency,” she said. “You can never fully predict a crisis, but certainly investing in organizational-development resources, planning, and capability-building—so that you’re as prepared as one can be—is increasingly and incredibly important.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a From Day One contributing editor whose work has also appeared in the Economist, the BBC, the Washington Post, and Fast Company. Erin Behrens is an associate editor at From Day One.(Featured photo: A wildfire burns in the hills north of the San Gabriel Valley community of Glendora, Calif., on Jan. 16, where authorities ordered the evacuation of homes. AP Photo by Nick Ut)
In Women’s Health, a New Coalition Aims to Keep Up the Progress
BY Abigail Abrams July 17, 2024Women’s health care, long neglected by medical researchers and tech innovators in the U.S., is starting to get its due. A new coalition of digital health companies aims to harness the energy around women’s health to boost the accessibility and affordability of their care by working with employers to improve corporate benefits and workplace support.The group, called the Women’s Health Coalition for Digital Solutions, combines the mental-health platform Talkspace and the family-health company Ovia Health with other startups aimed at everything from fertility to menopause to nutrition and fitness.In its first year, the collective is focused on awareness and de-stigmatization efforts as well as using its members’ influence to advocate for workplace health equity. In future years, the coalition’s founders say they would like to encourage more investment in women’s health technology and enhance the patient experience by exploring integration among their many services.The idea for the group came about when Talkspace, which has expanded its business-to-business offerings in the last few years, was looking for partners, and executives saw a growing customer need in the realm of women’s health.“Women are busy. We manage our homes, we manage our work life, we’re managing our own personal happiness,” said Natalie Cummins, chief business officer at Talkspace. “What we’re hearing from our customers is that three barriers that still exist are stigma, access, and affordability.” She and other coalition partners are quick to note stats that show while women live longer than men, they spend 25% more time in “poor health” and they pay $15 billion more per-year in out-of-pocket health care costs than employed men. So Talkspace sought out other virtual health providers who shared their goal of helping people access care remotely, and intentionally put together a group that serves each point in a woman’s life cycle. In addition to Talkspace and Ovia Health the founding members include Conceive, which offers fertility and pregnancy support; Evernow, which offers menopause care; Nurx, a telehealth company that prescribes birth control, acne treatment, and other medications; FitOn, a fitness app; and Nutrium, which provides nutrition counseling. The coalition is part of a growing trend of employers prioritizing fertility and other family-building benefits in the last few years. The percentage of U.S. organizations offering such benefits increased from 30% in 2020 to 40% in 2022, according to the International Foundation of Employee Benefits Plans. The focus has expanded to include menopause, which has been poorly understood and little-discussed in the workplace. About 15% of companies surveyed by Mercer in 2023 provided menopause-specific benefits—up from just 4% in 2022. “We are seeing people respond to us in a way that is really taking menopause seriously as they should,” says Donna Klassen, a clinical social worker and co-founder of advocacy group Let’s Talk Menopause. She is particularly eager to see efforts aimed at changing the culture and policies around menopause in the workplace, as research has shown that menopause symptoms–and the stigma around them–can negatively impact both women and employers. Researchers at Mayo Clinic found that menopause symptoms cost the U.S. $1.8 billion in lost work time per year, for example. “When people have support at work, they are less likely to feel that they want to leave,” Klassen said. She emphasized the importance of trusted information as more women and their employers address menopause publicly. “People want their questions answered, and doctors don’t always have the time,” she said. “So let’s make sure you’re getting your information from credible sources.” Let’s Talk Menopause offers workshops and other educational programs to individuals and companies seeking to learn about menopause.That kind of education is key to the new coalition’s goals too. It’s “really an opportunity to drive some of the thought leadership with people who have been in this industry for a while and who are invested in improving the lives of women,” said Corrinne Hobbs, general manager and VP of enterprise and strategic partnerships at Ovia Health.Corrinne Hobbs, general manager and VP of enterprise and strategic partnerships at Ovia Health (Photo courtesy of Ovia Health)As the group develops, Hobbs says she sees the coalition companies being in a good position to provide services, advice, and research for companies that want to improve their benefits or policies in ways that support women’s health. Their effort comes as the U.S. continues to see the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning the federal right to abortion, which has led to other restrictions on reproductive health around the country. Cummins, Hobbs, and other coalition partners say they are not wading into national politics, but are focused on enhancing access to women’s health care for as many people as possible. They were pleased to see President Joe Biden’s executive order expanding research on women’s health earlier this year, for example, and are hoping this is a sign of progress. “For many years, women were thought of as tiny men and weren’t really required to be in clinical research,” said Lauren Berson, CEO and founder of Conceive, the fertility-support app that’s one of the coalition’s founding members. As part of the effort from the federal government, the National Institutes of Health will focus new research on menopause and an array of other health issues that affect women, including Alzheimer’s and conditions like endometriosis and fibroids.Conceive is especially focused on equipping its users with the science and information they need to navigate the experience of getting pregnant. “There’s just so much more we can do together when we think about the lack of research and the lack of infrastructure,” Berson said.The members of the new coalition say they have already heard from companies who want to join the group, but they know there is still a long way to go. Some first steps for employers looking to support women’s health, they say, are to design benefits plans that reduce the out-of-pocket costs for women, remove barriers to seeking care, and ensure benefits cover the full spectrum of employees’ experiences. “Ensuring that your workplace supports women is crucial,” says Hobbs of Ovia Health. “So what does that look like? Improving the parental leave policy, flexible work initiatives, ERGs to really understand the needs of employees and then also minimizing the caregiver burden at home.” Abigail Abrams is a health writer and editor. Currently she is the senior manager of content operations for Atria. Previously, she was a staff writer on health and politics for TIME magazine. Her freelance work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Guardian, and other publications.(Featured photo by SDI Productions/iStock by Getty Images)
The Google Firings: a Signal of a ‘Course Correction’ on Corporate Dissent
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza May 03, 2024Corporate America’s historic experiment in free speech appears to be reaching a turning point. For a time, big employers showed a growing tolerance of workers speaking out on social and political issues–with even company leaders making bold pronouncements on emerging issues.In 2017, for example, workers spoke up about sexual harassment as part of the #MeToo movement. In 2020, they made their opinions known about racial justice after the murder of George Floyd. In response, many employers made changes to the status quo, updating hiring policies, investigating misconduct, setting up employee resource groups (ERGs), and holding discussions on world events. Some even formed “social issues working groups” to respond thoughtfully to emerging controversies.But the latest cultural flashpoint, the Israel-Hamas war, has not settled in quite the same way. Rather than spurring policy changes and public forums, the tension around this issue has prompted in-office protests and arrests. The politics that moved into the office in 2017 never moved out, but the tenor of today’s conflict–at least in the workplace–is different.In a signal event last month, Google fired 50 employees who took part in sit-ins to protest the company’s contracts with the Israeli government. Nine of them were arrested for trespassing. Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent out an email to staff declaring that work is not a place to “fight over disruptive issues or debate politics.” In another high-profile case, long-tenured National Public Radio reporter Uri Berliner accused the platform of imbalanced reporting on the conflict in a published essay. Berliner was suspended and later resigned.One implication of the corporate response is that the organizational embrace of dissent, especially on polarized issues, is reaching its limits. John Higgins, who researches and writes about employee activism, believes employers are giving the public an “X-ray” of their corporate culture. “I find it fascinating how [Google] created a corporate culture where a sit-in was the only way that the employees thought they could be heard, and the only management response they could imagine was to fire everybody,” Higgins told From Day One. “Everybody’s been talking about dialogue in organizations for decades, and that is not dialogue. That is a straight power play. The question is, where will this end?” The trend so far, notably among tech companies who earlier made a point of projecting their progressive values, is that “we’re seeing a course correction across the board,” Fortune editor-at-large Michal Lev-Ram told CNBC this week.Confrontations in corporate America are mirrored on college campuses, where disagreements have turned violent to the point of stealing media attention from the underlying crisis in Gaza. As students and faculty members demand that universities divest from their interests in Israel, as well as cut ties with organizations that do business in Israel, several universities have responded aggressively, which has affected not just students but also the people who work there.Nadia Abu El-Haj, a professor at Barnard College and Columbia University, believes that by asking New York City police to intervene with pro-Palestinian protesters on campus, Columbia’s administration lost the confidence of its own faculty. “That decision was the last straw: it galvanized faculty who otherwise not only had no involvement in pro-Palestine politics but in some cases actively disagreed with the students,” she said in an interview with the New York Review.There have been reports of faculty arrests at Stony Brook University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Virginia Tech, Washington University, and California Polytechnic Institute, not to mention student arrests across the U.S., which now number in the thousands. At Emory University, at least one professor was handcuffed, while a teacher at Dartmouth College described her arrest as “brutal.”Where Will the Crackdown Lead?“The firings at Google, I think, are a sign of the zeitgeist,” said Alison Taylor, a clinical associate professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business and author of the new book Higher Ground: How Businesses Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World. In 2024, companies don’t need workers as desperately as they did just a few years ago. Job openings in the U.S. sank to a three-year low in March and quit rates declined as well. As power shifts from employees back to employers, many companies are clawing back power.Overall, the evidence is mounting that it doesn’t benefit companies to get involved in public discourse that’s going to split their stakeholders, Taylor told From Day One. “My strong impression is that people running companies are somewhat regressing because [getting involved] looked very convenient when it was Trump and climate change and immigration, but when it’s reproductive rights and Gaza, it is much less convenient.”“How quickly the pendulum swings,” wrote journalist and author Joanne Lipman in a post on LinkedIn. Lipman, who is currently a lecturer in political science at Yale, underscored the marked change in employer-employee relations. “Just a few years ago, in the wake of #MeToo and George Floyd’s murder, companies accommodated and sometimes supported protesting employees. Contrast that with today, when companies have had it with restive workers, and are cracking down on them instead.”Lipman has been a front-line witness to the about-face. As she continued on LinkedIn: “I happened to be at Google’s headquarters to give a talk on Nov. 1, 2018, the day of an historic company walkout to protest sexual harassment and workplace culture. The crowd was massive, permitted to assemble, and the company ultimately met some ... of its demands. A very different vibe last week, when Google fired 50 employees involved in a far smaller protest.”Of course, an exact comparison can’t be squarely drawn. The case could be made that employers can exert a greater impact on sexual harassment or discriminatory practices in their own workplace than on war overseas. The Economist made the case that even if major universities were to divest from their interests in Israel, the effect would be largely symbolic and have little to no effect on the actions of the Israeli government, Google’s Nimbus Project being an obvious exception.The events on college campuses and in tech-company offices reflect the coarser political climate writ large. Polarization in public is bleeding into polarization in the workplace. “The inability to seek out compromise and to seek out dialogue within Google is in itself a parallel process with the wider political discourse within the country,” said Higgins. ‘It Was Clear That Things Were Going to Get Pretty Messy’As early as 2018, Taylor was warning that the corporate-activism trend would not end well. “Scapegoating is inevitable,” she wrote for Quartz. By being outspoken advocates of one thing or another, companies were casting themselves in the role of public officials–and, alongside public officials, were blamed for polarization, terrorism, privacy violations, racism, and extremism. The problem is that businesses can’t necessarily do much about, say, terrorism.At the time, “short-term controversy around a political issue [was] a small price to pay for overall approval from the public and media,” she wrote. That’s no longer true. Backpedaling from overt involvement in public discourse, companies are now more likely to comment only on matters they can directly influence. But the precedent has been set, and workers are taking out their frustration on businesses. Transparency, once the mantra of companies and their publicly charismatic executives, has often been their undoing, especially when words do not reflect actions.How inevitable was this clash? Precipitating events, like the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, aren’t necessarily predictable, at least by business leaders. But if it weren’t this particular event, it would be something else, Taylor argues. “Once companies have opened up this avenue of activism, an avenue of leaders speaking up, an avenue of leaders taking positions on things, then it was clear that things were going to get pretty messy, pretty quickly,” she told From Day One.How Companies Might Better Handle Differences of OpinionBy firing the sit-ins, the message was clear, Higgins said: Don’t tell us anything we don’t want to hear in a way we don’t want to hear it. “What Google has reinforced is very traditional command-and-control.” In his estimation, the company would be better served to ask, How can we all live with our disagreements?“Businesses do not operate in a vacuum,” Higgins said, and they should stop behaving as if they do. Unless they are willing to engage with their workers–sans terminations and law enforcement–leaders will trap themselves in their own echo chambers and ultimately drive discontent underground. “People will become extremely skilled at telling senior management what they want to hear. Meanwhile, they will get on with doing what they need to do.” As the leadership team grows increasingly out of touch with its workforce, discretionary energy will be funneled into maintaining a placid façade rather than innovating. Volcanic activity, of course, begins underground.Taylor doesn’t envision a return to an earlier time in which battles over politics were fought only in the political arena, no matter how much employers may want it. “Younger generations do not see the world this way, and then [companies] opened up Pandora’s box. It’s pretty hard to go back to the way things were.”Companies would be ill-advised to dismiss the agitations of younger generations, who are the harbingers of change. “They tell you about what’s shifting in social attitudes, and that tells you what your customers are going to value,” said Higgins. Instead, workers and employers must become comfortable with disagreement.“If two people never disagree, it means at least one of them is not thinking critically or speaking candidly, and that means both of them are failing to learn from the exchange that might happen between them,” organizational psychologist Adam Grant told Anne McElvoy on The Economist Asks podcast in 2022. “I think a lot of us are taught to argue to win; I think what we ought to be doing is arguing to learn.”Coloring the culture wars is “binary bias,” in which the people who agree with you are good and those who don’t are bad. “I think that’s really interfering with progress,” Grant said on the podcast. Where there are only good guys and bad guys, compromise is as bad as capitulation—and neither side wants to be defeated.In his Free Press essay, Berliner lamented that “diversity of thought” was unimportant in the NPR newsroom. This, he argued, has cost the institution the trust of the public.It could end this way, Higgins estimates: Companies continue to sort themselves into “red” companies and “blue” companies and workplaces will become more homogenous and further entrenched in their beliefs. “By and large, people will increasingly join companies that align with how they view organizations fitting in the world: those companies which see themselves as having a social role and those that say, ‘We are explicitly not going to play that game.’”But the only way out, he said, is curiosity. “How this will end, I hope, is that if people are serious about engaging with collective intelligence, if people are serious about taking organizational agility seriously, they have to double down on learning how to walk toward contention and difference.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business, work, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, the Washington Post, Quartz, and Fast Company.[Featured photo: Tech workers from Google, Meta and Amazon protested against Big Tech supplying Israel with intelligence tools outside Google offices in Manhattan on April 16. Photo by Cristina Matuozzi/Sipa USA via AP Images]
From Day One Celebrates Its Fifth Anniversary
BY Stephen Koepp September 20, 2023Half a decade ago, the news was erupting daily in an avalanche of headlines about Corporate America. A lot of those headlines were about scandals. About mistakes and injustice. These were not just mainstream media headlines, but also major stories emerging from digital media and social media. In fact, it seemed like for the first time everyone suddenly had a voice, and many of these voices were shouting. Many people within these companies were already committed to making positive change. But corporate values issues are often complex. They are typically interwoven with other business priorities, history, or plain old inertia. “Companies were being held accountable for their behavior in new and important ways, and it seemed like there was real, and possibly permanent change happening,” recalls From Day One CEO Nick Baily. “But then what? Even once you agree on a new set of values, there’s a lot of work to do in making them real.” This was the historical turning point the three founders of From Day One were contemplating when they launched, exactly five years ago this month, the organization’s very first event, a one-day conference of hundreds of business leaders at BRIC House in Brooklyn, a place not previously known for business conferences. From the start, it was designed to be something different.The idea was that the country needed a “forum on corporate values,” a gathering of professionals to talk about the relationship between companies and their employees and communities. In other words, their stakeholders, rather than just their stockholders. The founders–Baily, Erin Sauter, and me–felt certain that we didn’t know the answer to these pivotal questions, but we felt equally certain that there were many people with inspiring, practical insight on these topics, and that bringing them together into the same room would be a positive first step.The first event was a hit. Speakers from companies including IBM, NBCUniversal and Condé Nast offered fresh ideas on “building a more purposeful team” and “setting your values and following them.” Sponsors ranged from AT&T to Con Edison to Eileen Fisher. Attendees, for their part, asked: What will you be doing for an encore?The three founders decided to bring the Brooklyn-bred idea to Chicago, Boston, and beyond. Five years later, From Day One has hosted 45 one-day conferences from Seattle to Miami. The pandemic produced an existential moment of doubt for the company, but necessity proved inspirational. From Day One has hosted more than 60 virtual conferences and 220 webinars. All told, more than 72,000 professionals in HR and related fields have attended From Day One’s events. This year, Inc. magazine recognized From Day One as one of America’s 5,000 fastest-growing companies. The audience at a From Day One conference in Atlanta; featured photo: a panel onstage in Seattle (Photos by From Day One)Since the company has taken a journalistic approach to its conversations, it has never lacked for topics. History-making events of the past five years provided fuel for conversations that From Day One’s founders never could have expected. To start with, the pandemic brought the remote-work revolution. As Harvard professor Tsedal Neeley told our virtual audience: “I am 100% convinced that, if we do this hybrid right and with courage, and we set our policies based on need and not fear, we’re preparing for the digital revolution that’s right around the corner.” She was prophetic about the challenge of getting it right.The murder of George Floyd inspired a push for racial justice in Corporate America that would prove to be fitful, but the conversation was groundbreaking. “All of a sudden, I was talking about this, and our employees’ eyes were opened. We’ve never really talked openly about racism before at work,” Hoai Scott of NBCUniversal told our audience in Los Angeles. As the pandemic eased, the pent-up demand for more rewarding and meaningful work triggered the Great Resignation that sent companies into a frantic search for talent, which has only somewhat eased. “Comparing where we are now to where we were pre-Covid, I think the employee is going to retain a lot of power,” AT&T executive Ben Jackson told our Dallas audience last year. In turn, the need to retain workers inspired a major push among companies for better learning-and-development programs. “Our vision is–and it’s very lofty–we want to redefine what education means in this country, full stop,” Walmart’s head of L&D said in a From Day One fireside chat.What may be the most consequential development of From Day One’s short life is a debate about not only the future of work, but the meaning of work in our lives. To be sure, our colleagues at Harvard Business Review, which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, have been at this awhile. But recent years have turned this philosophical question into a competitive news beat for business reporters and thinkers like Anne Helen Petersen, who has spoken to From Day One’s audience about both of her recent work-focused books. She was early in raising the prospect that a flexible approach to work arrangements “could actually help us decenter work, just slightly, from its place of prominence in our world.”To offer such a vigorous schedule of events to talk about these issues, From Day One now has a team of 18 full- and part-time employees who’ve developed diverse areas of expertise in finding inspiring speakers, developing an engaged audience, staging well-run events, and helping sponsors grow their businesses.What’s next? From Day One is planning a rich assortment of live and virtual events for the rest of 2023 and all through 2024, including a conference next week in our neighbor borough of Manhattan. We hope you’ll join us for the next chapters of our story.Steve Koepp is From Day One’s chief content officer.
The Supreme Court and the Diversity Backlash: How Employers Can Respond Now
BY Andrea Sachs July 05, 2023The backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in corporate America is now in full swing. Conservative politicians have turned DEI programs into a campaign issue under the banner of anti-wokeness, with an increasing number of red-state legislatures seeking to ban DEI efforts altogether. Consumer boycotts have shaken name brands. Many corporate DEI budgets have been cut in the name of austerity, while surveys of employee sentiment show a rising tide of “diversity fatigue.” Many DEI leaders, who were given a mandate to help corporations “do better” in the realm of racial justice after the murder of George Floyd three years ago, have grown dispirited in their roles. In this environment, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on June 27 striking down affirmative action as unconstitutional in higher education came as another blow to advocates of DEI efforts to make the U.S. a more equitable country. With the addition of three conservative justices by President Trump, the court’s action was widely anticipated by the academic community. But it was not only universities that were gearing up for the ruling. The business community was also expecting such a ruling; an impassioned friend-of-the court brief was filed by dozens of major technology, finance, and health care companies who support DEI efforts. Ranging from American Express to Walgreens, they pleaded with the high court not to come to the result that the majority ultimately did, because the named companies rely on “racially and ethnic diverse student bodies” to find their future workers.It is certain that there will be major workplace ramifications from the affirmative-action decision, even though that case applied to higher education rather than in the business world. (College admissions are governed by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, whereas private employment is covered by Title VII.) Immediate questions arose in many workplaces about the consequences of the court’s ruling. Will DEI programs now be weakened or banned? Can race still be considered in employment decisions? And will an activist Supreme Court look for a suitable case in which to extend its controversial educational dictates to the workplace?Though the answers to those questions are not entirely clear at this point, legal and HR experts advise advocates of DEI to be proactive. Here are five essential steps that corporate leaders can take in this new, post-affirmative action world:Remind Stakeholders Why DEI Is Beneficial to EmployersThe corporate rationale for DEI has been twofold: not only is it morally right, but it brings benefits to corporate culture and the bottom line. “Study after study demonstrates that, across organizations, diversity enhances critical thinking, creativity and collaboration, as well as productivity, profitability and performance,” wrote Ford Foundation CEO Darren Walker last week in the New York Times. “It is a national tragedy that diversity is now a contested issue rather than a common interest.” Make Sure Your DEI Programs Aren’t in Conflict With Current LawsIt’s definitely time to review your current DEI framework in consultation with your legal team and employment-law experts. “Be sure your policies and programs don’t unintentionally run afoul of anti-discrimination laws and recognize that quotas and preferences–as well as perceived unfairness–can create legal problems,” advises the Fisher Phillips law firm. “You should also review your employee handbook and other written policies to ensure they are up to date, aligned with your goals, and legally sound.” New York University legal experts Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, authors of a new book on how to talk about DEI in the workplace, offer easy-to-follow instructions for a “self-audit” of current DEI initiatives to avoid unwanted legal exposure. They suggest using codes to sort programs as red (high risk), yellow (medium risk), and green (low risk). But they discourage making knee-jerk semantic changes to terms like DEI or diversity: “We think it is unnecessary to revamp the language in this field. Although the court held that the universities’ interests in achieving a diverse student body did not justify a race-conscious admissions policy, companies are still allowed to strive for a diverse workforce.” Take Prudent Steps to Avoid the Possibility of a Reverse Discrimination LawsuitThe number of corporate DEI programs surged after the 2020 murder of George Floyd and the social-justice movement that followed. The result has been a fierce legal backlash, with conservative politicians, right-wing activists, and red-state legislators working strenuously to challenge them. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s new ruling, this trend is expected to intensify. Andrew Turnbull, a partner at the Morrison Foerster law firm who represents companies in labor and employment litigation, told Axios, “When people hear affirmative action has been overruled, they may say, ‘Well, why is my company still doing diversity programs?” The decision is also expected to embolden conservative activists. Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, a right-wing advocacy group, told the Washington Post that the ruling “will put the wind in the sails of groups like ours, who want to get the woke, racially based hiring and promotion schemes out of corporate America.” America First Legal, a group headed by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, has recently filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), asking it to investigate corporate diversity and hiring practices at major companies such as McDonald’s and Unilever. And in June, a federal jury in New Jersey ordered Starbucks to pay a white former manager $25.6 million, finding that she had been fired became of reverse discrimination.Although reverse-discrimination cases are not a new phenomenon, the potential risk of these claims may be increased by the Court’s shift in position, as well as the political ferment. Employers now should educate themselves about state legislation targeted at restricting DEI initiatives, as in Florida and Texas and brace themselves for possible challenges. This is an area that may well benefit from a lawyer’s trained eye. Alvin B. Tillery, Jr., director of the Center for Study of Diversity and Democracy, cautions against overreacting. Tillery told the New York Times, “I do worry about corporate counsels who see their main job as keeping organizations from getting sued—I do worry about hyper-compliance.”Explore New Ways of Growing Your Job Candidate PoolCorporate America has become dependent on higher education to provide a pool of job-ready, diverse candidates. That flow is certain to be stanched in the future by the court’s affirmative-action decision. “I don’t believe that there’s a dispute that university demographics will become more homogenous and less diverse,” said Janine Yancey, founder and CEO of Emtrain, an inclusion-and-belonging consultancy. This will lead to “a smaller talent pipeline,” she told From Day One. It has measurably occurred already in the nine states that have banned race-conscious affirmative action policies, generally through ballot initiatives.This has been particularly true in Michigan and California. After California voters enacted a ban on affirmative action in 1996, the number of Black students at the elite University of California campuses in Berkeley and Los Angeles plummeted. Likewise, since Michigan voters ended affirmative action in 2006, the number of Black students at the University of Michigan has dropped dramatically.Employers will need to cast a wider net now to secure a diverse workforce. Rhonda V. Sharpe, the founder and president of a think tank on equity, the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity, and Race, sees a silver lining to such a result. Said Sharpe, “I will not shed a tear for affirmative action but will rejoice in the possibilities for Historically Black Colleges … and Hispanic Serving Institutions.” In fact, the impact of affirmative action was mostly in elite universities. “The majority of Black and Hispanic students attend universities that accept more than three-quarters of their applicants,” wrote academics Richard Arum and Mitchell L. Stevens in the New York Times. “The current opportunity to bring racial equity to American higher education lies in a collective re-commitment to the quality and success of more accessible institutions.” Many DEI experts recommend that corporate HR leaders look even further upstream, investing in programs to develop underserved youth long before they make a decision about higher education. Put More Stress on Employee RetentionWith a less diverse candidate pool, experts see more problems retaining a racially or ethnically representative workforce. “No one wants to work in an environment where they are ‘the only,’” Janice Gassam Asure, the founder of BWG Business Solutions, a consultancy designed to help organizations create more inclusive environments, wrote in Forbes. She warns that the affirmative-action decision “will not only make it more challenging to retain the employees you already have, but it will likely be more difficult to attract new talent from underrepresented communities.”It is important to pay close attention to employee sentiment in the immediate aftermath of the affirmative action decision. Y-Vonne Hutchinson, the CEO of ReadySet, a DEI consulting and strategy firm, asserts that some employees may be unsettled by this decision: “Your employees, particularly those from historically marginalized backgrounds, may be experiencing anxiety, stress, sadness, fear, and disappointment right now. They may be struggling to process what this all means–for them, and their families.” Hutchinson urges companies to both “provide space” for those employees and provide support such as employment resource groups (ERGs) or extra mental health resources.Stalwarts like Iesha Berry, chief diversity and engagement officer and head of people experience at DocuSign, have no intention of giving in to the current political pressure against DEI. “It doesn’t change our focus,” said told the Wall Street Journal. Diversity is “not a stand-alone, and it’s not something that is the flavor of the day, but critically important to the business and the business success.” Andrea Sachs, a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, began her career as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., at the National Labor Relations Board, then spent nearly 30 years in New York City as a reporter at Time magazine. She is currently the editor of The Insider, a weekly digital publication.
Has the HR Profession Gone From Undervalued to Overwhelming?
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza April 18, 2023In just three years, HR leaders have gone from aspiring to be where the action is to rarely getting a break from it. The professionals once regarded as paper pushers and corporate law officers are now charged with an increasingly long list of duties: developing the future workforce, protecting employees’ mental health, maintaining equity, preventing attrition, and lots more. For many if not most HR professionals, the result is burnout. Just as one crisis eases, another springs up, with HR often the first responders. In a recent surreal turn reported by Bloomberg, some HR leaders have now been tasked with laying off their peers when even the HR department starts getting the axe. Many leaders in HR have celebrated the expansion of HR into so many business operations, but has the department taken on too much too quickly? Is the job overwhelming? According to a recent poll by business software company Sage, 95% of HR leaders and C-suite executives say that HR role is too much work.Tamara Jolivette-Smith, the director of HR at health care provider Houston Methodist agrees. “In day-to-day operations, the work never stops,” she said in an email to From Day One. “New and unexpected issues continue to arise, with mental health issues becoming more and more prevalent with employees.”To handle the department’s growing responsibilities, Jolivette-Smith added three new positions to her team: two new hires for employee relations and one for recruiting–the duties that consume most of her team’s time. She’s ready to add more if that’s what it takes. “Burnout is real and I want to ensure the integrity of the team,” she added. Indeed it is: Few HR practitioners need reminding how exhausting the work can be. According to the Sage poll, 81% of HR leaders said they are personally burnt out, and 62% said they’re considering leaving the field.The department has spent three years battling challenge after challenge, Christopher Shryock, SVP and chief people officer at Sam’s Club, told From Day One. First there was Covid, then the Great Resignation and the need for rapid hiring, and now they’re managing fallout from massive layoffs, specifically in the tech industry. That’s just the new stuff.Shryock said everyone is feeling the burn, not just the HR department. The difference is that HR has an obligation to put on its proverbial oxygen mask first. Shryock believes that a burnt-out HR department is an ineffective one, and the messages that HR department sends about well-being have to be applied to the HR team first. “We talk a lot about how our team isn’t going to be very helpful to the organization if we don’t have our own oxygen masks,” he said. “We have to take some of our own medicine in terms of what we are saying, what we are articulating, and what we are encouraging the rest of the organization to do.”One reason for the significant burnout in the HR function may be its demographic makeup. HR departments are predominantly staffed by women, and women bear the brunt of unpaid work. “You’ve got 34% of women today saying they’re burned out, vs. 26% of men,” said Shryock, citing a 2021 Gallup poll. “That’s a delta of eight percentage points. If you just go back three years, that delta was three percentage points.”Despite the weight of the work, HR leaders are remarkably resilient and optimistic. The Sage poll found that 91% of HR leaders are excited about the future of HR, and 86% consider themselves speedy and agile. “I love HR and people, and I love working through the challenges,” Jolivette-Smith said. So, what does HR need to succeed? According to the poll, the department needs to upskill its team with a focus on tech specialization, invest in well-being initiatives, and develop stronger peer-to-peer networks within HR. Jolivette-Smith said that she’s taking team lunches and making time for off-site activities so her HR team can give back to the community together; she has added morning huddles to field team questions and guide her staff through what’s on deck for the day. At Sam’s Club, Shryock has been automating and digitizing as much as possible. His team has invested in consolidating data across fewer tech tools and apps, automating processes, making process approvals easier, and in opening learning opportunities “so the HR team can be out of the minutiae and can be more focused on value-add and engaging work.” He said digital products and tech teams in the company are great partners. If the HR team can take care of its own well-being first, they can use that energy to pour into the rest of the organization. Shryock cited a favorite quote: “It’s chaos, be kind,” attributed to late author Michelle McNamara. “I think if we take that mentality, not only of the business functions and the associates and the employees we’re supporting, but we take that mentality with each other, I think that can actually unlock a lot for us.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance reporter and From Day One contributing editor who writes about the future of work, HR, recruiting, DEI, and women's experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Fast Company, Quartz at Work, Digiday’s Worklife, and Food Technology, among others.
The Essential Questions Facing Employers on Abortion Rights
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza July 01, 2022When corporate America was called on to speak out in favor of same-sex marriage and racial justice, few hesitated. On the supremely divisive issue of abortion, however, corporate leaders face much tougher decisions. Despite the leak of the majority opinion in the Supreme Court’s hearing of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization almost two months before the official decision, employers are scrambling to understand what the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the removal of reproductive rights means for their employees. The list of questions companies will have to address in the coming months is growing–and changing. For now, employers are thinking immediately about public statements, in the middle distance about health care coverage, and over the long term about whether they will contribute to the fight to regain reproductive choice. Among the most essential questions: What Kind of Position Will You Take on Abortion Access? Rather than condemning the ruling itself, most corporate leaders framed the issue as a matter of employee reproductive rights. “I believe CEOs have a responsibility to take care of their employees–no matter what,” Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff said in a tweet. “As a company,” Hewlett Packard CEO Enrique Lores tweeted, “we believe that it should be up to every single one of our employees to decide whether and when to start a family, whether that’s choosing who they love and marry, taking paid time off if they are having a child, and having access to health care.” But many other major corporations, including Walmart, Coca-Cola, and Delta Airlines, stayed mum on the issue. As businesses consider their public message, Susan McPherson, who runs McPherson Strategies, a company that consults on corporate social responsibility (CSR), recommends considering this question: “Do our company values and giving align with the statement we are making? Align with our philanthropic and political spend?” McPherson warned about inconsistency. “Making a public statement in support but not providing any tangible benefits to workers,” she said, is the first mistake employers are likely to make. “Words matter less than actions,” she told From Day One via email. The second is being insincere. “If your company speaks out against something but you have donated to political campaigns or PACs that support it, workers and consumers will call out that inauthenticity, and the company will suffer the consequences.” For example, AT&T celebrates Women’s Equality Day, but is the biggest corporate donor to politicians behind anti-abortion “trigger laws” designed to ban abortion upon the defeat of Roe v. Wade, Insider reported. Not every company will be able to make a public statement about access to abortion rights without losing customers and employees. “We recognize people feel passionately about this topic, and that there are teammates and athletes who will not agree with this decision,” said Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Lauren Hobart in announcing financial support for employees who decide to travel to have an abortion in states where it remains legal. Even if a company decides to neither publicly endorse nor condemn, “first and foremost, don’t pretend that this didn’t happen,” said Sarah Sheehan, co-founder and president of the employee-coaching platform Bravely. “I do think it’s possible to acknowledge in a very neutral way that this decision has repercussions and that there are a lot of feelings surrounding it that may impact how people show up at work,” she told From Day One. Does Your Health Care Plan Cover Abortion Services in States Where It Is Legal? Employers are examining whether their current health care plans cover abortion, and if not, whether they will make changes. Many high-profile companies including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Nike and Starbucks have said they will cover travel and health care costs related to getting an abortion in a state where it is legal. Nike is among the high-profile companies that have promised to support employees who need to travel for abortions (Photo by Artran/iStock by Getty Images) However, new abortion benefits won’t be available to most U.S. workers, according to a survey of 220 HR executives conducted this week by the Gartner consulting group, Bloomberg reported. A majority of the HR leaders in the survey said they don't plan to change their health care offerings, or are still considering options. This gap is likely to add to social inequality. “To the extent that corporations are making any moves, they’re making moves with regard to the so-called talent—low-wage, hourly workers are not going to be getting these extra benefits,” Robert Reich, the secretary of labor under President Clinton, told Boomberg in an interview. “It’s a cover. It’s a sweetener. It makes people feel as if the right things are happening.” Employers that have added travel costs to their health care offerings will, in the coming months, wade through the administration of such a benefit in a way that satisfies compliance requirements and protects the workers who use it. They will have to navigate state-by-state legal issues as well. Texas lawmakers have warned companies including Citigroup and Lyft that they may ban or sue companies that help employees travel out of state for abortions. How Will You Protect the Confidentiality of Employees Who Seek Abortion Care? For companies that choose cover or reimburse the cost of travel for abortion care, confidentiality should be a concern. Employees may feel compelled to disclose the reason for their absence to their manager or HR director—information that could put them at risk of discrimination. “You shouldn’t have to tell your manager you're getting an abortion,” Aubrey Blanch, a senior director at the employee-survey firm Culture Amp, told the New York Times. Whether such travel puts them at legal risk in states that have made abortion illegal is not clear yet, but suddenly digital privacy is a critical issue, since evidence of a crime may reside in a woman’s smartphone. The Dobbs ruling inspired many women to delete their period-tracker apps, which have become part of many corporate family-health benefits. One of the most popular apps, Flo, announced an “anonymous mode” to allow users to remove identifying details from their profiles. One way to protect employee privacy is to make abortion benefits non-specific, said Janine Yancey, CEO of Emtrain, an employee-learning platform. The more generic the policy, the better. “Employers are doing it right by drafting a health care benefit that can be used for all health care situations, not just for abortion situations.” She continued: “Employers can provide a generic travel subsidy to all employees who need to travel for health care needs, and the use of that benefit is protected health care information, protected by HIPAA.” Do You Risk Losing Employees Over Abortion Access? McPherson said employers should be asking the question, “What are the ramifications, both in employee retention and financially, of not responding or taking a stand?” The American workforce is increasingly principled in its choices. Gartner reported in 2019 that 87% of employees say businesses should make a public stand on societal issues related to the business, and 74% say they should do so even when the issues aren’t directly related to the business. In the case of access to reproductive care, it’s likely that no matter the position a company takes, some employees will walk. The workers with resources will have the means to leave, and those without resources and without social supports, will not. Salesforce and Google said they would move employees who want to leave states where abortion is banned. Despite such corporate beneficence, the Dobbs ruling puts a new geographical limit on women’s career choices, asserted Tressie McMillan Cottom, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, writing in the New York Times. “With Roe v. Wade toppled, we do not have the same rights in all labor markets,” she wrote. “In a global market, an empowered worker is one who can migrate. With Dobbs, women cannot assume that we can safely work in Idaho the same way that we can in Oregon or Washington.” How Will You Protect Other Rights That Are Now at Risk? The fall of Roe v. Wade raised concerns that the ruling conservative majority on the Supreme Court could roll back other civil rights as well, including same-sex marriage and contraception. Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion in the Dobbs case, said the court “should reconsider” earlier precedents that affirmed such rights. Given the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, employers should start thinking now how they will protect the rights of their employees–and respond to their fears. Employers need to be aware that overturning Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed the right to same-sex marriage, would compromise “access to employer-sponsored health coverage and retirement plans, as well as adoption and fertility benefits, and would leave room for employers to redefine who would qualify as a dependent for employees seeking parental or caregiving leave,” said a report by Charter, an organization that examines workplace practices. While last week’s decision was not a surprise, especially after the leak of a draft in early May, some employers waited to respond and are now racing to catch up with what is shaping up as a new battlefront in the culture wars. Companies should take the language in the official decision as a serious warning that other rights are now on the table. How Will You Contribute to State and Federal Action to Protect Reproductive Health Care Rights? Corporate leaders have been steadily taking a higher profile on social issues, typically with their stakeholders in mind. In the early 2010s, corporate America appealed to the Supreme Court in favor of same-sex marriage. Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, employers pledged money to racial-justice organizations like Black Likes Matter and the NAACP. When the Russian government invaded Ukraine in February 2022, major companies, including McDonald’s and American Express, halted operations in Russia. Part of the explanation is peer pressure, asserts Stephanie Creary, an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School. “What we’re seeing right now in many companies is a really strong response to external advice, recommendations, pressure to engage more intently around social issues,” she said last month in a radio interview. She has even noticed an increase in hiring of executives with the title “director of employee activism.” Even so, the abortion issue may be a bridge too far for most companies. The June poll by Gartner found 20% of HR executives don’t feel compelled to respond in any way to the official Dobbs decision. Thirty-six percent said they aren’t sure. Yet polls consistently show that a majority of Americans oppose the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Among women and college graduates, the majorities are even larger. Those majorities will notice employer timidity on the issue, McPherson told From Day One, and it won’t be long before many consumers do too. “Now more than ever, companies are being challenged to take a stand publicly on social issues that matter,” McPherson said. “Younger workers, in particular, want to know that their company’s values align with their own. This isn’t an issue that’s going away. Businesses are going to continue to be held to account for their speech or silence on things like reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ rights. It’s past time to have a plan in place to take a stand.” Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance writer based in Richmond, Virginia. She writes about the workplace, DEI, hiring, and issues faced by women. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Fast Company, and Food Technology, among others.
The Storm Before the Calm: How to Help Workers Cope Yet Again
BY Michael Stahl January 11, 2022At the moment, the latest Covid variant is creating chaos of a different order than earlier waves. America is calling in sick, disrupting operations almost everywhere. Hospitals are limiting capacity because of illness and exhaustion among workers. Schools are struggling to stay open. Many store shelves are empty again. Airlines are canceling flights by the thousands each day. Major employers including Ford, Apple, Google, and others have pushed back their return-to-office dates. And yet, one refrain is consistent: This is not March 2020. We have vaccines now, new treatments, and forecasts that the omicron spike could have an almost equally precipitous decline. It's a paradox–a surge with unprecedented velocity but generally mild physical effects–and it presents a new planning challenge for employers: How can they help weary workers through yet another endurance test, even while preparing for what could be an early spring, as far as Covid is concerned? We consulted several experts about how to handle the storm before the calm: Treat Workers as Individuals, Now More Than Ever: “As leaders, we must come to terms with the realization that there isn’t one solution or policy to combat the uncertainty and upheaval facing our employees right now,” Maria Colacurcio, CEO of Syndio, a pay-equity platform, told From Day One. “The right answer is different for every company, and every employee.” Right now, Colacurcio is choosing to focus heavily on “building a culture of trust that instills in each employee the belief that the decisions we make as a company prioritize their safety and are in their best interest.” Bring Employees Into the Conversation: “An answer that is created from leadership alone without the voice of the people who are living this uncertainty is a mistake,” says Shannon Brooks, an Atlanta-based operations strategist. When setting a return-to-office date, or outlining any plans for the future, Brooks believes that informing employees about changes that may be coming, even as leadership only begins to consider them, helps stave off distrust. The final decision won’t then seem like it was made on the fly. She describes openness and transparency from corporate leaders as not just a “best practice” today, but a “requirement.” Find Out What’s Causing Stress Right Now–and Be Responsive: “We shouldn’t have to wait for an omicron to do these things,” acknowledges Gia Ganesh, VP of people and culture at Florence Healthcare, a tech platform for conducting clinical trials. “These are the right things to do.” Leaders at Florence have recently administered surveys that focus on employee burnout, collecting data points on obvious related concerns like a lack of time away from work, but also less plainly connected issues such as a lack of “role clarity,” which research shows can lead to burnout. Ganesh says the surveys have empowered not only managers, who can now better spot burnout and address it, but also employees who have tools to deal with their own individual situations. Ganesh’s company has equipped workers looking to mitigate burnout with three “recharge days”–additional paid time off for mental-health breaks–introduced into Florence’s employee benefits packages for 2022. Last year, the company provided each worker with a $1,000 wellness stipend for mental health-related expenses not covered by health insurance, including psychotherapy, spa treatments, gym memberships, and other relevant costs. Develop More Sustainable Ways of Communicating: “With the first closures in the early pandemic, many organizations in ‘emergency mode’ suddenly shifted to largely remote work and adopted mostly real-time communication and meeting tools like Slack, Teams, and Zoom,” but that’s not sufficient any more, believes Shaun Slattery, director of customer success for LumApps, an employee-experience platform. With hybrid work now firmly established, organizations need to think critically about how to structure work and communication. Among other things, he said, employers need to “equip teams with tools that support working in multiple modes–virtual whiteboards, robust teleconferencing platforms, synchronous and asynchronous collaboration platforms, and purpose-built apps for specialized work or tasks.” Start Figuring out Reasons for People to Come Into the Office: “Senior management, by and large, believes that there are benefits to physically being together (the usual stuff of serendipitous encounters that spark ideas, face-to-face interactions that nourish the soul, and so on),” Harvard Business Review editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius told From Day One. “But it's impossible to prove these things, and workers seem skeptical about them these days. So what's the carrot for being in the office? Free food? Hackathons? Dance parties? Carrots of some sort seem essential, but we haven't figured out how to roll such things out in a meaningful way.” Push for Innovation–to an Extent: The prolonged pandemic spell has compelled companies in the U.S. and abroad to rethink operations in radical ways beyond just remote work. A high-end clothing brand based in Spain, Desigual, has shifted to a four-day workweek, with its employees agreeing to a 6.5% pay cut to account for an expected productivity drop of 13%. While Florence Healthcare’s Ganesh says the intended goal of innovations like four-day workweeks can be achieved through other means, including flexible schedules that remove the stigma against workers taking days off, the latest Covid surge can be yet another watershed moment that gives leaders permission to experiment. “Employers everywhere should be leaning into trying different things, with the spirit of being flexible, adaptable, and creative,” Ganesh says. Brooks feels similarly, but also warns against “change fatigue.” While not necessarily work-related–it can be caused by the dramatic social changes prompted by the pandemic–change fatigue can make employees more reluctant about transitioning away from the status quo. To help relieve such resistance, operations strategist Brooks refers back to the importance of welcoming employees into leadership conversations. “You can’t just say, ‘OK, here are 52 changes we’ve been wanting to do for years. Let’s do those all now.’ You have to prioritize,” she said. “But strategic innovation is absolutely imperative at this time–in moderation.” Michael Stahl is a New York City-based freelance journalist, writer, and editor. You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books.
Corporate America Gets Serious About Covid-19 Vaccinations
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza August 26, 2021Until now, many employers hesitated to mandate Covid-19 vaccines for their workers. Wary of a divisive issue, they instead urged or recommended that workers get inoculated, along with wearing masks in the workplace. For many companies, that position changed dramatically this week when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for people 16 and older, the first vaccine to reach that status. Along with the rise of the highly infectious Delta variant and a surge of cases in most U.S. states, the FDA announcement set off a wave of vaccine requirements from U.S. corporations, colleges and universities, the Pentagon, and the New York City school system. The FDA announcement provided both a carrot and a stick. For some of the 85 million Americans who are eligible but unvaccinated, the full FDA approval may ease concerns about the vaccine’s previous designation as an experimental drug. For employers and other organizations, it provided a rationale for enforcing vaccination as a safe and effective measure against a disease that presents a threat to both life and business. In remarks delivered from the White House briefing room, President Biden urged employers to require vaccination for their workers. “If you're a business leader, a non-profit leader, a state or local leader who has been waiting for full FDA approval to require vaccinations, I call on you now to do that. Require it. Do what I did last month and require your employees to get vaccinated or face strict requirements.” At the end of July, the Biden administration announced that all federal employees–more than 2 million people–will be required to get the vaccine, and Monday, the Pentagon said the same would be required for all those in the armed forces. On the same day that Biden pressed employers, many large companies rolled out vaccine mandates. CVS Health said its corporate and clinical workers have to be vaccinated by Oct. 31. The company has not said what it will do about employees who remain unvaccinated after that date. Goldman Sachs announced it will require employees and any visitors to its offices to be vaccinated, and employees who aren’t vaccinated by Sept. 7 will be required to work from home. “The measures [businesses] have taken so far aren’t leading to the levels of vaccination in the workforce that they want,” Wade Symons, who leads consulting group Mercer LLC’s regulatory resources group, told the Wall Street Journal. “They are starting to think about some of the more strict measures they can take.” State and municipal officials have followed suit. After the FDA approval, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that public-school teachers and staff must provide proof of vaccination, and New Jersey governor Phil Murphy announced the same for both state and public school employees. Some employers had mandated vaccines for workers even before the FDA’s full approval of the Pfizer shot. In July, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Uber instituted vaccine requirements for U.S. employees returning to offices. And more recently, Microsoft and Tyson Foods made vaccines mandatory for their workforces. Tyson is incentivizing vaccinations by offering $200 to frontline workers who get the jab. “Getting vaccinated against Covid-19 is the single most effective thing we can do to protect our team members, their families and their communities,” said Dr. Claudia Coplein, Tyson’s chief medical officer, in a statement. Employers are even using Covid-19 vaccination status as a filter for job applicants. The percentage of job postings stipulating that new hires must be vaccinated increased 90% between July and August–before the FDA announced its full approval of the vaccine—according to Indeed. Passengers and crew at a Delta Air Lines gate at Atlanta's airport. Delta is requiring unvaccinated workers to pay a $200 monthly surcharge on their health care plans (Photo by Joel Carillet/iStock by Getty Images) Workers who choose not to vaccinate could be hit with financial penalties or even termination. Delta Air Lines will charge unvaccinated workers an extra $200 each month for their company-sponsored health plans. The rationale, said Delta CEO Ed Bastian in a staff memo: “The average hospital stay for Covid-19 has cost Delta $50,000 per person. This surcharge will be necessary to address the financial risk the decision to not vaccinate is creating for our company.” While Delta has stopped short of a total vaccine mandate, its rival United Airlines made an early decision to require vaccination for all of its nearly 67,000 workers. “For me, the fact that people are 300 times more likely to die if they’re unvaccinated is all I need to know," United CEO Scott Kirby told Axios. "It's about saving lives.” So far, termination for failure to get vaccinated has been rare, but earlier this month CNN fired three employees who reported to the office unvaccinated, in violation of company rules. With a growing number of mandates, Corporate America could make a significant dent in closing the vaccination gap by requiring vaccinations for customers as well. The indoor cycling gym SoulCycle will require riders to show proof of vaccination, and Disney and Royal Caribbean cruise lines will require passengers to do the same. AEG Presents, the world’s second-largest live-music company, said earlier this month it will soon require proof of full vaccination to enter its events. Yet increased vaccination rates among the U.S. labor force won’t necessarily mean more workers in offices. At the same time companies are issuing vaccine mandates, many are reconsidering their return-to-work plans as a result of the alarming spread of the Delta variant. Facebook announced earlier this year that employees would return to the office by October 2021, but changed its plan in August, saying it will delay the return until 2022. Google also had plans to require workers to return to the office at least three days per week by Sept. 1, then pushed the return to mid October. “We recognize that many Googlers are seeing spikes in their communities caused by the Delta variant and are concerned about returning to the office,” said CEO Sundar Pinchai in a statement. “This extension will allow us time to ramp back into work while providing flexibility for those who need it. We’ll continue watching the data carefully and let you know at least 30 days in advance before transitioning into our full return to office plans.” Indeed, many corporate leaders are acknowledging the uncertainty of the situation. The software company Paylocity had planned to officially reopen its offices after Labor Day, but the Delta virus intervened. “We have now put a pause on that and said, ‘Hey, let’s put it out until October and keep an eye on what’s going on,’” the firm’s chief HR officer, Cheryl Johnson, told Human Resource Executive. “The Delta variant is something myself and the senior leaders are keeping a very, very close eye on.” Some employers will encounter friction from Republican state leaders not amenable to company-stamped vaccine mandates, whatever their reasons may be. This month, Arizona governor Doug Ducey signed an executive order preventing cities and counties from enforcing vaccine mandates, and state legislators in Arkansas passed a bill prohibiting businesses from requiring employee vaccines. But companies are pushing back. Norwegian Cruise Line is suing the state of Florida for a law that fines a cruise line each time it requires passengers to provide proof of vaccination. The law is fairly clear in saying that employers may impose a vaccine mandate. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has provided guidance about what employers can and cannot require. A statement from the commission updated in May reads: “The federal EEO laws do not prevent an employer from requiring all employees physically entering the workplace to be vaccinated for Covid-19,” with the few exceptions being for reasons of religious beliefs or disabilities. In Corporate America, Covid-19 vaccination is quickly becoming the law of the land. Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a writer, editor, and content strategist based in Richmond, Va.
Corona-crisis relief: What companies and others are doing to help soften the blow
BY Mimi Hayes March 16, 2020Our news roundup focusing on how businesses and other organizations are making purposeful efforts to provide help at a time of crisis. Updated April 16 Amazon: Testing all employees for Covid-19 CEO Jeff Bezos announced that Amazon will be expanding efforts to test employees for the coronavirus. “Regular testing on a global scale, across all industries, would both help keep people safe and help get the economy back up and running. For this to work, we as a society would need vastly more testing capacity than is currently available,” Bezos wrote to shareholders. He stated Amazon would be testing all employees, regardless of whether they were showing any symptoms of the virus. Starbucks: Some locations to re-open After closing a majority of stores in the U.S. and Canada on March 21, the popular coffee chain may re-open certain locations for drive-thru and to-go orders, depending on local health guidelines. The company will take a “monitor and adapt” stance, noted CEO Kevin Johnson, and will also be extending paid leave for employees and paying an extra $3 per hour to those still on the job. Toyota: Teaming up to manufacture ventilators Like many manufacturing companies, Toyota has adapted to creating medical equipment, particularly sought-after ventilators. Nihon Kohden, a Tokyo-based manufacturer of medical electronic gear, is now working with Toyota to boost output of ventilators by fivefold, reported Bloomberg. Nissan and other car manufacturers may follow suit. Office Space: This company has created an office-sounds generator Miss the office? Chances are you didn’t realize just how much you craved the sound of a copy machine. Kids Creative Agency, a culture design company based in Switzerland, just launched imintheoffice.eu, a simulator to bring us back to all the familiar and oddly nostalgic sounds of our offices. Updated April 10 Twitter & Co.: Tech billionaires donate money and resources Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, announced this week that he plans on donating approximately one third of his wealth, or $1 billion, to coronavirus relief programs. Other celebrities from Jeff Bezos to Oprah Winfrey are following the trend, contributing millions to food banks and philanthropic organizations. While this provides much-needed short-term relief, critics warn that it's no substitute for what the government can do to alleviate economic inequities. “It’s really important to ask why the crisis has hit us the way it has and the weaknesses it’s exposed,” author Anand Giridharadas told Recode. Restaurants: Becoming makeshift grocery stores With empty shelves in grocery stores and worker strikes sweeping across popular grocery-delivery businesses, local restaurants are converting their closed locations into grocery stores. In San Antonio, dozens of businesses are pooling their resources to sell essential items, meal kits, and, of course, precious toilet paper. Movie Theaters: Finding unique ways to stay afloat As movie theaters large and small have been shut down due to social-distancing orders, some local cinemas are finding ways to stream new indie films with a new stay-at-home option. Customers can buy a ticket online and will receive a one-time viewing link and an option to support a local theater with their purchase. “We really do think that we’re supporting small theaters and their staff,” says Erik Lokkesmoe, president of Aspiration Entertainment. Hair Salon: Founder makes emergency pivots to save company Amy Errett, the founder of Madison Reed, a hair-color brand, taking drastic measures to adapt to the pandemic. After shutting down multiple stores in San Francisco, Errett has seen an increase in online orders by adjusting supply chains and giving hairdressers customer-service positions to help people color their own hair at home. “We quickly quadrupled the size of the Color Crew from 30 to 115 people to support increased customer demand, and got everyone set up in new jobs within a week,” Errett said. Detroit Sewn: Local contractor starts manufacturing masks A contract-sewing shop in Detroit is now working full-time making masks for healthcare staff, essential workers, and the elderly. Inspired by the "Arsenal of Health," a movement designed to pivot manufacturing, the company began work making 50,000 cotton reusable masks per week for healthcare workers in desperate need of personal protective equipment (PPE). The company has since partnered with several other non-profit organizations to distribute and develop machinery to make N95 masks, which are more effective at stopping the virus than standard cloth masks. "What's important to know is these are not alternatives to N95 masks, nor are they alternatives for surgical masks, they are considered standard face masks," says Detroit Sewn CEO Karen Buscemi. Updated April 7 Tesla: Using car parts to make ventilators The electric-auto maker released a video this week breaking down a prototype of its Model 3-borne ventilator, made partly of Tesla car components. The company joins Ford and General Motors in rushing to build ventilators that hospitals need to help severely ill coronavirus patients breathe. "Model 3 parts used in the Tesla ventilators include a mixing chamber and vehicle controllers and several components of its Model 3 infotainment system, including the touchscreen and infotainment computer," Fast Company reported. Car-insurance companies: Giving customers a break As motorists around the U.S. shelter in place, Allstate and American Family Insurance are cutting drivers some slack. Allstate will be giving 15% of its monthly premiums back to customers and American Family will send $50 for each vehicle registered with a policy. With fewer cars on the road, fewer accident claims are being filed, so companies are returning some of the windfall to customers. Not all auto-insurance companies are on board yet. Grocery delivery: More ethical options In response to worker strikes over hazard pay and workplace safety during the pandemic, a new company is empowering small shopping-and-delivery companies to compete with the big platforms like Instacart. Dumpling, a new shopping platform, allows users to hire local delivery-business companies to shop for their groceries and essential items. Founder and co-CEO Joe Shapiro stated that personal shoppers using the platform are earning a take-home pay of $33 per job, “an order of magnitude higher than the average that you see on other online delivery apps,” Fast Company reported. Uber: Helping out-of-work drivers find jobs Impacted tremendously by the coronavirus, 3.9 million hourly drivers are now looking for alternative means to make ends meet. This week Uber launched Work Hub, a platform to connect drivers to new job opportunities such as warehouse, food production, and customer-service positions. Uber will also connect drivers to opens outside of the company and will not collect commissions from partner companies. Updated April 1 Kohl’s: Launching curbside pickup tomorrow In an email to customers this week, Kohl’s CEO Michelle Gass announced that the 1,200-store chain would begin a new "drive-up" feature that allows shoppers to order items online and have them placed in the back of their cars upon arrival. The stores will remain closed to the public. Participating locations are to be announced on the company's website kohls.com starting tomorrow. Facebook: New feature to encourage neighborly behavior The social-media giant announced a new “Community Help” feature that allows users to volunteer to help neighbors in their area. Within a 50-mile radius, volunteers can help deliver groceries, medicine, and run errands for sick or elderly neighbors. The feature is set to roll out this week in the U.S., U.K., and France. Crocs: Donating shoes to frontline health-care workers The company's CEO Andrew Rees is donating 10,000 shoes for nurses and doctors across the U.S. Workers can have the shoes, known for their comfort and easy clean-up, delivered to their homes by going to crocs.com/freeforhealthcare. "These workers have our deepest respect, and we are humbled to be able to answer their call and provide whatever we can to help during this unprecedented time," said Rees. Dallas Mavericks: Owner supports arena workers NBA team owner Mark Cuban has put into place a program to continue to pay hourly workers who are now out of a job. With the league unsure when games will resume, thousands of workers are now left empty handed. Cuban also plans to work with organizations to provide day care for frontline health workers. Bloom Energy: Fixing up old ventilators While many companies are starting from scratch, a California-based company called Bloom Energy has taken to refurbishing thousands of old and broken ventilators to send out to hospitals in need. “This is a really good reminder and representation of the power of American manufacturing, and Americans coming together to support the community,” said Susan Brennan, Bloom’s chief operating officer. Updated March 30 Yum Brands: CEO forgoes salary to help restaurant managers CEO David Gibbs, who oversees brands including KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, announced today that he will give his 2020 salary to restaurant general managers in the form of one-time, $1,000 bonuses. His expected $900,000 will also be used to fund the Yum Brands Foundation Global Employee Relief Fund to help employees directly impacted by the pandemic. Facebook: A pledge $100 million to news media News publishers, particularly the print media, are taking a hit during this pandemic and Facebook is offering its help. From the promised $100 million total, $25 million will be given to local media, while the remaining $75 million will be spent in marketing for global news organizations. Both Facebook and Google, whose dominance in the market for online advertising has exacerbated the decline of American newsrooms, have earlier pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to assist local media. Johnson & Johnson: Making progress on a coronavirus vaccine With a $1 billion investment from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a federal agency, Johnson & Johnson announced it is getting closer to a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus. Human testing could begin as early as September, with use possibly by early 2021. The company is also partnering with other countries to speed up manufacturing capacity. Amazon: Alexa voice assistant now offering triage The company has added a new feature to the popular Alexa voice assistant to help users gauge their risk level for coronavirus. The AI-bot will respond with questions about symptoms and travel history, while offering expert health guidance from the CDC about how to get help if they are at risk. Alexa will also sing you a song for 20 seconds while you wash your hands, the minimum washing time advised by health experts. Medical drones: taking flight in the U.S.? Zipline, a medical drone delivery service launched in Rwanda, is now working to bring its devices to the U.S. In Ghana, the company has already used the drones to deliver emergency masks and gloves to regional hospitals. The startup is currently brainstorming ways to use the drones for prescription delivery as well. Updated March 27 Walmart: Waiving rent for essential partner businesses For the month of April, Walmart will offer rent relief to more than 10,000 businesses housed in their stores such as hair salons, veterinary clinics, banks, and eye doctors. The company has seen a boom in sales since the coronavirus pandemic and has also announced it will give $500 million in bonuses to hourly workers. Apple: New CDC-approved screening app and website The company announced a new website and iOS app that allows users to take a questionnaire to screen for possible symptoms. The app and website include information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the virus and what to do if the app indicates that a user may be positive for COVID-19. Instacart: Hiring as demand escalates As more Americans stay home and avoid grocery stores, Instacart has announced it will seek to hire 300,000 independent contractors over the next three months, nearly doubling its current workforce. "The last few weeks have been the busiest in Instacart's history and our teams are working around the clock to reliably and safely serve all members of our community," said Instacart founder and CEO Apoorva Mehta. Dyson: Founder designs new ventilator in record time In response to an order from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is suffering from coronavirus himself, the vacuum-cleaner company announced that it has designed a ventilator that will be ready to distribute to hospitals as soon as April. The devices will meet National Health Service requirements. Columbia University: Putting 3D printers to good use Madiha Choksi, research-and-learning-technologies librarian at Columbia University, put the school’s 3D printer to work this week by printing face shields for health workers. With help of volunteers, she has turned a local New York community center into an assembly line for the equipment. Updated March 25 Snapchat: New games encourage staying at home Zenly, the Snapchat app that allows you to share your location with friends, is now releasing a Stay at Home leaderboard to challenge users to help contain the coronavirus outbreak by staying at home. Zenly also offers a coronavirus lens, which allows users to see the number of confirmed cases updated on a map three times per day using data from the World Health Organization and Johns Hopkins University. Restaurants: New food automation and 100% contactless production Creator, a restaurant in San Francisco, is innovating with automated food production and a new pressurized “transfer chamber” that allows workers and delivery workers to eliminate the passage of germs during pick-up. “We can’t restart the economy until retail and restaurant workers are protected,” says Creator founder Alex Vardakostas. “They’re some of the most important people to keep virus-free.” Neiman Marcus: Partnering to ship protective gear to health-care workers Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus and Jo-ann Stores, the fabric-and-craft chain, are joining efforts to provide masks, gloves, and scrubs in several facilities across the U.S. The materials are not fully medical grade, but will follow health guidelines from the Providence Hospital System in Washington, reported the Dallas Morning News. 3M: Ramping up N95 respirator mask production Creator of Post-it Notes, Scotch tape, and various office supplies, 3M has been refining its response to health emergencies for nearly two decades. The company doubled global production of N95 masks and is shipping them to the hardest-hit areas in the U.S. The company is also announcing a partnership with Ford Motor Co. to produce air-purifying respirators for severely ill patients. Updated March 24 Nike: Top Athletes promote new coronavirus PSA The company known for the message “Just do it” is campaigning a new one: “Play inside, play for the world.” Among the famous athletes to endorse the message are LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and Cristiano Ronaldo. Ford: new ads and expedited ventilator and mask production Instead of a scheduled March Madness-themed campaign, Ford released a new ad with the tagline “Built to Lend a Hand,” encouraging those struggling to make car-loan payments to contact them if they need help, Fast Company reports. The company is also teaming up with 3M, GE, and the UAW to produce 100,000 face masks and disposable respirators using a 3D printer. Kraft-Heinz: donating $12 million to
This Week, Big Business Got Religion on Climate Change
BY fromdayone January 17, 2020Corporate leaders have been getting an earful lately from workers, consumers and students around the world: Do something about climate change, the activists have cried out. This week, big companies almost seemed to be taking turns stepping up to the microphone to announce their response. The week began with Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, declaring in his influential, annual letter to CEOs that his company, the world’s largest asset manager with nearly $7 trillion in investments, would start making investment decisions with environmental sustainability as a core goal. “Awareness is rapidly changing, and I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance,” Fink wrote in the letter, which was obtained by the New York Times. “The evidence on climate risk is compelling investors to reassess core assumptions about modern finance.” Besides creating new funds to avoid fossil fuel-oriented stocks, Fink wrote that BlackRock would vote against corporate-management teams that are not making progress on sustainability. Fink, a lifelong Democrat, told the Times’s Andrew Ross Sorkin that the decision was strictly business.“We are fiduciaries,” he said. “Politics isn’t part of this.” As if on cue, a parade of companies made announcements that they, too, were joining the fight against climate change. Visa, PepsiCo and Microsoftannounced that they had made strides toward reducing their carbon footprints or were making new commitments to do so. JetBlue, for its part, said it will become “the first large U.S. airline to offset emissions from all of its domestic flights, aiming to become carbon neutral by July,” Bloomberg reported. “This is part of a long-term commitment we and the industry have to have to reflect the climate reality we are in,” JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes said. “Aviation has a central and important role to play.” The earnest declarations emerged as global business leaders were preparing to head to the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos next week, where climate-change activists have promised to raise a hue and cry about the issue. “To the world leaders and those in power, I would like to say that you have not seen anything yet,” 17-year-old activist Greta Thunberg declared in a speech leading up to the WEF. At this point, however, the activists may finally be preaching to the converted, according toa survey of more than a thousand WEF participants about the biggest global risks facing the world. “For the first time, climate change or climate-related issues occupied the top five spots as the most likely global risks,” Quartz reported.“It’s the first time since the poll began that environmental risk has ranked so highly, up from zero in 2010.”
What ‘Best Companies to Work For’ Have in Common
BY fromdayone January 02, 2020Those lists in business publications about “best companies to work for” are eminently browsable to see who made the cut–and who’s notably absent. But Michael O’Malley and Bill Baker, authors of Organizations for People: Caring Cultures, Basic Needs, and Better Lives, decided to take a much deeper look, putting 21 of the consistent performers on those lists under a microscope. Visiting a diverse selection of companies including Patagonia, The Motley Fool, and Edmunds.com, they interviewed executives, conducted focus groups, and toured facilities. In a recent piece in Harvard Business Review, O’Malley summarized their findings. Here are some of the things the authors believe these companies do differently from their peers–and why they’re successful: Put People First “The best places to work provide people with life satisfaction as opposed to job satisfaction alone. Almost all of the corporate founders and CEOs we spoke with told us that they built their companies with people in mind. To them, a healthy culture is as important as a healthy balance sheet. Their benefits go far beyond minimum wage,” O’Malley wrote. Help Workers Find and Pursue Their Passions “The companies we studied find ways to rejuvenate employees by helping them identify their ‘calling,’ or the area of work that provides them with the greatest fulfillment,” O’Malley wrote. “Doing so not only increases productivity, it makes people feel happy—lucky even—to be at work. … The surest way to improve performance is to give people something they like doing.” Bring People Together on a Personal Level “Before beginning this project, we considered life events, rituals, and rites of passage—such as marriages, birthdays, and anniversaries—as trivial to the work environment. But the companies we visited gave us a new perspective. In fact, they made a big deal out of significant dates. Why? These social extracurriculars may appear contrary to real work, and to some, as senseless wastes of time. But forming meaningful relationships is real work. The best companies realize that personal affinities and deep social bonds are failsafe measures against team breakdowns and are essential for top team performance,” wrote O’Malley. Empower People to Own Their Work “The executives we interviewed repeatedly told us that they want their employees to think and act like owners. Allowing them to control aspects of their work, we learned, is the key to accomplishing this. Employees who have the leeway to rearrange, modify, and improve their assignments feel possession over them, and once this happens, their mindsets begin to change,” wrote O’Malley. “Instead of focusing on what cannot be done, they become preoccupied with what can. As a result, they are more easily able to grow, innovate, and push their companies forward.”
Hallmark’s Impossible Dilemma: How to Embrace Diversity While Avoiding Controversy
BY fromdayone December 19, 2019When caught in the unfamiliar glare of public outcry, Hallmark Cards issued a statement this week that encapsulated the company’s dilemma in two adjacent sentences. On the one hand, “We are an inclusive company and have the track record to prove it,” the company declared. On the other hand, it said, “It is never Hallmark’s intention to be divisive or generate controversy.” Yet in today’s polarized America, is it possible to have it both ways, especially for a company that’s a household name? This week Hallmark unintentionally provided a case study in the quandaries faced by companies being pushed by their stakeholders to take sides on issues ranging from climate change to gun safety. Over a matter of days, Hallmark aggravated a highly publicized fuss by seeming to embrace gay rights, then trying to avoid the issue, and then reasserting its belief in diversity and inclusion while apologizing for “the hurt and disappointment this has caused,” said its CEO, Mike Perry. The result was backlash upon backlash, but perhaps providing some lessons for business leaders navigating a highly politicized public arena. The brouhaha began when the Hallmark Channel, one of three TV channels the company operates in its Crown Media Family Networks division, ran a series of ads for Zola.com, an online wedding registry and planner. At least one of the ads showed a same-sex wedding with two brides kissing. The company had already been getting complaints from viewers about recent comments by Bill Abbott, CEO of the Hallmark networks, saying that the network would be open to LGBTQ-friendly programming, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Journal’s story was headlined, “In Three Days, the Hallmark Channel Managed to Upset Pretty Much Everyone.” Indeed, much more was to come. One Million Moms, a division of the conservative American Family Association, published a petition urging Hallmark to “please reconsider airing commercials with same-sex couples.” It was a sensitive moment for the Hallmark Channel, which profits over the holiday season from a surge in Christmas-themed programming. Top managers huddled over last weekend and decided to yank the offending ads. The company felt “it was in the best interest of the brand to pull them and not continue to generate controversy,” a spokesman said. LGBTQ-advocacy groups keep an eye out for this kind of cultural censorship, as in a case earlier this year when two Delta Air Lines inflight movies were edited to remove same-sex love scenes. One such advocacy group, Glaad, reached out to Hallmark in recent days and said it would start contacting the channel’s advertisers and asking them to protest by pulling their ads. Glaad compiled a list of 37 advertisers to target and planned to launch a media blitz to announce its protest. Meanwhile, the emerging controversy was providing raw material for mockery of Hallmark by everyone from Ellen DeGeneres to the Weekend Update anchors on Saturday Night Live. Hallmark’s top management huddled again and decided to reverse itself. “The Crown Media team has been agonizing over this decision as we’ve seen the hurt it has unintentionally caused,” said Perry in a press release. “Said simply, they believe this was the wrong decision. Our mission is rooted in helping all people connect, celebrate traditions, and be inspired to capture meaningful moments in their lives. Anything that distracts from this purpose is not who we are.” So who is Hallmark? Founded in 1910 by J.C. Hall, a high-school dropout, the Kansas City-based company has grown into a $4 billion enterprise with 30,000 employees and interests well beyond greeting cards including the TV channels, a chain of 2,000 retail stores, real-estate holdings, and the Crayola crayon company. Hallmark’s embrace of diversity has been fitful. Its website testifies to the company’s “welcoming work environment.” The company has won recognition as one of America’s best employers for women and “featured more actors of color than ever before in the 2018 lineup of original Hallmark Channel holiday movies,” the company said. Even so, “the Hallmark Channel has long been a place of blatant erasure,” wrote Trish Bendix on NBCnews.com. “This year (2019!), for the first time, it attempted to acknowledge Hanukkah (poorly), and the ‘diversity’ of its casts remains laughable (take a look at the Hallmark holiday movie homepage and you'll see it's looking like another straight, white Christmas). The Hallmark Channel has also continually ignored the existence of LGBTQ people. There is no room for queer people in the channel’s fantastical rom-coms and tales of family cheer.” Among the lessons from Hallmark’s holiday hullabaloo: In the business world, the arc of history bends toward diversity. Brands ranging from Tiffany to Walmart have embraced LGBTQ representation in their advertising, as well as support of events aligned with Pride month. Another lesson is that in today’s world of lightning-fast, social-media reaction, you have to move quickly, but also thoughtfully. “It’s hard to keep everyone happy, but flip-flopping doesn’t help,” Allen Adamson, co-founder of the marketing consultancy Metaforce, told the Associated Press. “These are difficult issues to navigate but when you’re going to make a call one way or another, make sure you understand the ramifications. You only want to pull the Band-Aid off once.” Fortunately for Hallmark, the company got back to its original position without further wavering. “It seems they learned a very hard lesson very quickly,” Todd Sears, founder and CEO of Out Leadership, told NBC News. “Its apology was very heartfelt and there was an earnestness, a sincerity in the apology.” Of course, not everyone was pleased. One Million Moms said it was “extremely disappointed” in Hallmark’s reversal, adding, “This is an enormous mistake that will cause a majority of its viewership to turn the channel.”
The Team Builder: Why Fortune Picked Microsoft’s Nadella as Businessperson of the Year
BY fromdayone December 05, 2019This has been a rough year in the public eye for Big Tech, whose digital giants have been pilloried as privacy invaders, monopoly builders and even threats to democracy. Yet one of them has stood out from the pack, basking in a glow of newfound admiration: Microsoft. Affirming that distinction, Fortune recently named Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella as its Businessperson of the Year. Fortune attributes his success to having succeeded in assembling the right team. In his ascent to the chief executive role, Nadella had several gaps in his resume, lacking significant experience in sales or finance. So he surrounded himself with complementary players. “I’m wired to be fairly confident in myself and to let others shine,” he told Fortune. Among those executives is president Brad Smith, who runs policy and legal affairs. “Nadella credits Smith, Microsoft’s longtime general counsel and previously an outside lawyer to the company, for leading policy initiatives on areas from cybersecurity to ethics in A.I. and privacy,” writes Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky. “A roving corporate ambassador, Smith has deftly positioned Microsoft, once the scourge of Washington and Brussels, as the most thoughtful and least under attack of its Big Tech cohort.” Microsoft’s reputational success has been matched by the financials. The company earned $39 billion in profits in fiscal 2019 on revenue of $126 billion, with revenues growing at a three-year compound annual rate of 11.%. Its stock-market capitalization, which had lagged for years, topped $1 trillion. Fortune’s declaration was presaged earlier in May by Bloomberg Businessweek, which put Nadella on the cover with the headline: “The Miracle of Microsoft: The greatest tech company of the 1990s is back.” The company that had once drawn comparisons to the Evil Empire of Star Wars was far less of a competitive threat in the 2000s, flailing as it attempted to ride the new waves of mobile phones, search engines and social networking. Businessweek’s sources inside and outside the company attributed the historic turnaround to a change in culture as well as strategy: “Microsoft marketers like to attribute its reemergence as a tech power to a sort of cultural rehab, involving what Nadella calls corporate ‘empathy’ and a shift of his team from a ‘fixed mindset’ to a ‘growth mindset.’ The reality of the company’s turnaround was more painful … Under Nadella, it cut funding to Windows and built an enormous cloud computing business—with about $34 billion in revenue over the past year—putting it ahead of Google and making progress in key areas against the dominant player, Amazon Web Services. ‘I don’t know of any other software company in the history of technology that fell onto hard times and has recovered so well,’ says Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix.” By a different set of performance dimensions, however, Microsoft came in No. 2. On the Wall Street Journal’s annual ranking of the Management Top 250, the winner for 2019 was Amazon, which unseated Apple for the No. 1 spot. “Amazon catapulted to the top of the list this year by earning an off-the-charts ranking in innovation,” wrote the Journal. “Its score in that dimension of performance is more than double that of any other company. Amazon outpaces others in patent applications, trademark registrations and spending on research and development,” reported the Journal, which works with a team of researchers at Claremont Graduate University’s Drucker Institute using dozens of data points to rank companies on five performance dimensions: customer satisfaction, employee engagement and development, innovation, social responsibility and financial strength. The Journal’s rankings also rolled out a new “red flag” designation to highlight companies with particularly weak scores in one dimension of the scorecard. Facebook earned a red flag for customer satisfaction, likely attributable to the controversy over its data-privacy practices, and Walmart drew a red flag in the area of employee engagement and development. In recent years, the company has aimed to improve worker satisfaction with an array of education and development programs.
Discrimination on the Job? Young People See More of It Than Older People Do
BY fromdayone November 05, 2019Which age group sees the most discrimination, including ageism, on the job? Not the older employees or even the middle groups, but the young. In a new poll, American workers under the age of 35 were the ones most likely to see and feel bias on the job. Rather than suggesting that the young are more often the targets, experts said the results indicated “how different generations can view the same behavior,” the Wall Street Journal reported. Three out of every five workers have witnessed discrimination at work based on age, race, sexual orientation or gender, according to a survey from Glassdoor and the Harris Poll of 1,100 employees. “But people between the ages of 18 and 34 were far more likely than other age cohorts to report having witnessed or being subject to each type of discrimination,” said the Journal. The results may be reflective of a generation that is coming of age at a time of heightened awareness of bias, including sexual harassment revealed by the #MeToo movement. Younger people are more likely to see it for what it is and call it out, compared with older people who may be either less clued-in or more resigned to the status quo, according to Carina Cortez, Glassdoor’s chief people officer. Remarkably, young people tended to report more ageism than their elders. Fifty-two percent of younger workers said they saw or felt age-related discrimination, vs. 39% of workers over 55. Why’s that? The perception could be caused the tendency in both the media and the workplace to lump generations together and assign stereotypical traits to them, notably the cohort so often referred to as “those millennials,” Cortez told the Journal.
By Ousting the CEO, McDonald’s Sends a Strong Signal on Workplace Conduct
BY fromdayone November 04, 2019The sudden dismissal of the CEO of McDonald’s over the weekend showed in dramatic fashion that the codes of conduct for top management in Corporate American have risen sharply. The fast-food chain announced on Sunday that its board of directors had fired CEO Steve Easterbrook after he engaged in a consensual relationship with an employee, violating company policy. Other CEOs have been fired for sexual misconduct in recent times, but in the case of CBS CEO Les Moonves, the accusations included harassment and retaliation, and in the case of Mirage Resorts CEO Steve Wynn, charges involved multiple cases of sexual assault. At McDonald’s, company policy forbids managers from having romantic relationships with direct or indirect subordinates. “Other companies don’t always act on that kind of information or fire their CEO for that, and so it seems like they are trying to enforce a pretty strict policy in this situation,” University of Richmond Law Professor Carl Tobias told Fortune. In the case of a CEO, everyone on the payroll is effectively a subordinate. Easterbrook, who is 52 and divorced with three daughters, acknowledged in an email to employees that “this was a mistake. Given the values of the company, I agree with the board that it is time for me to move on,” he wrote. He will be replaced by Chris Kempczinski, most recently the president of McDonald’s USA. The ousted CEO had generally been credited for launching a turnaround at McDonald’s, which had been under competitive pressure from fast-casual restaurants and food-delivery apps. “There’s no question he’s been a very good CEO during his time there,” Jonathan Maze, editor of the trade publication Restaurant Business, told the New York Times. “He really made that organization a lot leaner, they make decisions a lot more quickly,” he said. “They have gone from a company that was well behind on technology to one that is arguably at the forefront of things like artificial intelligence and delivery.” Even so, McDonald’s has faced criticism for low wages for its front-line workers and a failure to address sexual harassment. As the Times reported, “Tanya Harrell, a McDonald’s worker in New Orleans who has helped lead the campaign for a $15 minimum wage, said workers had filed dozens of complaints with McDonald’s demanding that the company take action to address sexual harassment. McDonald’s has ignored the demands, Ms. Harrell said, including requests to sit down with workers to discuss the issue.” The company has lately been offering training programs to U.S. employees in an effort to prevent sexual misconduct, but the extraordinary case of firing the CEO may send a strong signal in its own right. In an email to employees, the new CEO Kempczinski wrote, “Yes, we serve delicious food and offer great experiences, but our brand means so much more. We stand for opportunity and empowerment for everyone.”
What Is It About Wegmans That Makes People Feel All Warm and Fuzzy?
BY fromdayone November 04, 2019In any town big or small, the opening of a new supermarket is typically a welcome event. But nothing was quite like the emotional outpouring that accompanied the debut of a new Wegmans supermarket last week in Brooklyn, NY. The media swarmed. Customers swooned. What is it about Wegmans? The family-owned company, one of the largest privately held corporations in the U.S. (2018 sales: $9.2 billion), has built a reputation on vast product selection, low prices, and excellent customer service at its 100 locations from New York to North Carolina. Yet there’s something more to the story that could be instructive to other companies. Reported the Wall Street Journal in the days leading up to the Brooklyn opening: “More than anything, Wegmaniacs say, the grocery store makes them feel good. ‘There’s an association that becomes ingrained in you as a kid that gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling,’ said Megan Clegg, a product designer who grew up near Syracuse and lives three blocks [from the Brooklyn location]. Ms. Clegg, 31, said she likes how the store forgoes fluorescent bulbs in favor of warmer lighting and uses store signage to celebrate employees’ work anniversaries or college acceptances.” For its coverage, the New York Times tapped a staffer named Jesse Wegman (no relation, but an affinity for the store chain nonetheless), who reported from the scene of the opening: “I had heard about the emotional connection people have to Wegmans, but I had never seen it up close. I can report that it is a real thing,” he wrote. He continued: “So what explains this level of passion for a grocery store? Some of it is the natural loyalty that attaches to a family-owned business, which Wegmans has been for more than a century. Some of it is the fact that Wegmans predated the current trend of massive, well-stocked, high-quality supermarkets. But what struck me most in the end was not the range or quality of the food options …. It was the sense of community, of shopping for food as reaffirmation of a shared civic life in which everyone looks out for one another. This sense seems to exist between the owners and the staff (Wegmans consistently ranks as one of the best workplaces in the country), and between the staff and customers.” Times urban columnist Ginia Bellafante, a Brooklyn resident, weighed in as well on the sources of Wegmania. “Wegmans counters some of our disaffection with retail capitalism,” she wrote. “The business is family run, still after several generations. There is no Jeff Bezos figure at the top holding on to his money as if it were a handgrip that would kill him if he let go.” As a civic matter, Wegmans was welcome in Brooklyn in part because of the location of its new store in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is now a thriving tech hub but is adjacent to a neighborhood that includes many low-income residents who need jobs. The company hired about 200 of its 500 new workers from outreach events at nearby housing-authority buildings. “That is why, nearly a decade ago, when supermarket chains submitted proposals to the city for the chance to open in an area serving both gentrifiers and thousands of public housing residents, Wegmans won,” she wrote. As it turned out, the new Wegmans was delayed years in arriving, but the outpouring of affection indicates that the wait was worth it.
‘The Virtuous Company Is Not an Oxymoron But a Necessity’
BY fromdayone September 24, 2019Many applauded when the elite club of America’s top CEOs, the Business Roundtable, declared last month that corporations should have a sense of purpose beyond just profits—but skepticism abounded too. On the one hand, legal experts pointed out that shareholder primacy is still deeply embedded in corporate law, so companies will be held accountable mostly by their shareholders for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, cynics fueled a debate on whether the business group’s new statement of purpose was just empty rhetoric, a response to growing economic populism. Yet now a leading expert on giant corporations makes a cogent argument that “stakeholder capitalism”—in which big business should consider the interests not just of shareholders but also employees, customers, suppliers and community members—is not only commendable, but a much-needed corrective in today’s winners-take-all economy. “Cynicism in the face of pious corporate proclamations can be healthy. But there is increasing reason to think that the virtuous corporation is not an oxymoron but a necessity,” wrote Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia University and author of The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age, in the New York Times. Wu argues that priorities in the world of business have become badly skewed, to the point where the sole focus on profits is simply unsustainable because of what it has done to the economic environment around them. Metaphorically, they have polluted the sea in which they swim. “Unfortunately, American corporate leadership, cheered on by Wall Street, has been steeped for several decades in a culture of profit-squeezing,” he writes. “In some cases this culture brought needed discipline to bloated industries. But what began as a campaign for greater management discipline has gone far too far, robbing corporate leaders of their natural social and moral instincts—often with disastrous consequences.” He cites the pharmaceutical industry as an egregious example, whose “narrow metrics of success has led not only to outrageous prices but also to great suffering, addiction and death.” The need for capitalism with a conscience is twofold, Wu argues: because businesses employ the vast majority of America’s workers and steer much of its economic activity, and because government has failed in many respects to build a fairer economy. Stronger laws and regulations will help as far as they go, but their more important impact will be in changing the culture. Concludes Wu: “Most of the men and women who lead corporations are decent people, yet too often they find themselves forced by the prevailing culture to ignore their better instincts.”
Walmart's Dilemma: How to Respond To Calls For Greater Gun Safety
BY fromdayone September 05, 2019“As we’ve seen before, these horrific events occur and then the spotlight fades,” declared Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart, America’s largest corporate employer. “We should not allow that to happen. Congress and the administration should act.” McMillon announced several moves that bring the spotlight back again. While big companies have traditionally shied away from politically polarized issues, that’s changing recently, with Walmart taking a more aggressive position on gun control. The company announced this week that it would stop selling ammunition for military-style assault rifles and handguns, it will begin “respectfully requesting” that customers refrain from openly carrying weapons inside the company’s stores, and it will ask Congress to increase background checks and consider bringing back the U.S. assault-weapons ban. McMillon had signaled earlier that the company would be making such moves in the aftermath of the mass shooting a month ago at a Walmart store in El Paso, where a gunman killed 22 people. Walmart is not only the largest U.S. retailer, with 4,000 stores, but also the largest seller of guns and ammo. For years, the company had been narrowing its selection of firearms, ending handgun sales in the 1990s (except for Alaska, where handgun sales will now end as well) and halting sales of assault rifles in 2015. Given the Walmart’s roots in Arkansas and its omnipresence in rural America, the company has moved only gradually on the issue, even as overall public sentiment in the U.S. has increasingly favored greater gun control. But events have pushed the company into a position of leadership, especially given its scale. “Any decision that a company that is that big and that ubiquitous makes is going to please some people and upset others,” Aron Cramer, chief executive of BSR, a nonprofit group that advocates social responsibility in business, told the New York Times. “It is extremely hard not to take action when people are dying at one of your stores.” Walmart will continue to sell more traditional hunting firearms, but it estimates that its share of the U.S. ammunition market will fall to about 6%, down from 20% currently. Despite Walmart’s huge small-town presence, the company has to consider the sentiments of its much more diverse stakeholders, who include urban and coastal customers as well as young people, all of whom tend to advocate stronger rules on gun safety. “The company is also trying to build its online business to compete with Amazon by recruiting younger engineers and developers, who are attracted to companies that profess social values that reflect their own,” the Times reported. One of the trickiest things to enforce of Walmart’s new positions is its request that customers refrain from openly carrying guns in its stores, even in states where doing so is legal. Not long after Walmart’s announcement, Cincinnati-based Kroger, the largest U.S. supermarket chain, asked that its customers stop openly carrying guns into its stores and called for stronger background checks on gun buyers. “The retailer will likely use new signage at entrances asking customers to leave weapons behind, but the retailer did not explain what store associates will do in the event a shopper shows up with a rifle slung over their shoulder or with a gun holstered on their hip,” the Cincinnati Enquirerreported.Thirty-one states allowthe open carrying of handguns without any license or permit, the result of dramatic changes in state laws over the past three decades to make such laws more lenient. Open carrying of long guns is permitted in 44 states. Could the moves by such retail giants embolden other companies? "It's a positive step in the right direction," said Mike Dowling, CEO of of Northwell Health, New York State's largest health-care provider and private employer, told CNN. Dowling, who who has written about gun violence as a "public health crisis," likened Walmart's move to CVS' decision to stop selling tobacco products in 2014 out of a concern for public health.