It’s All About the Employee
It’s All About the Employee
The pandemic will have many legacies, but one of the largest will unquestionably be the rise of employee power relative to other stakeholders. It began out of necessity: In order to keep employees safe while keeping things running, businesses had to compromise by letting many white-collar employees work anywhere at any time, while also caring for workers’ mental health and even supporting their home technology. Still, many employees chose to leave just as the global economy came out of hibernation. Some called this “The Great Resignation,” others “The Great Reset.”
Whatever the name, it was—and remains—the biggest shift in power in a generation. Said Olivia Kirtley, director at Papa John’s and U.S. Bancorp: “The biggest concern for the future—it’s always people. Do we have the right people now? Are we developing the right talent for new and different challenges—not only to prevent crisis but for the growth strategy?”
The Untethered World survey brings this power shift into stark relief. We asked members to rank their priorities today versus three years ago. What we found is astonishing: Employees’ reactions have become the single biggest consideration for leaders making a complex decision. Employees’ reactions ranked higher than boards, brand images, investors, and shareholders. When members were asked how they would have ranked these topics three years ago, employees’ reactions ranked sixth.
The implications stretch across the company and go all the way to the top. For boards, which have always been focused primarily on the fiduciary responsibility of the company to make money, a new question emerges: Exactly how do they make money—and is it in a way their employees support?
Figure 4
Please rank the following considerations influencing leaders when making complex decisions today vs. three years ago.* (n=190)
| Group | Rank (2022) | Three years ago |
|---|---|---|
| Employee reactions | 1 | 6 |
| Brand image | 2 | 2 |
| Consumer reaction | 3 | 5 |
| Board expectation | 4 | 1 |
| Shareholder reaction | 5 | 4 |
| Investor sentiments | 6 | 3 |
| Public opinion | 7 | 7 |
| Supplier relationships | 8 | 8 |
*We asked respondents to compare their own priorities to what they believed they had been three years ago. We did not survey them three years ago.
The way companies recruit and hire has already shifted dramatically. It is now a requirement for businesses to demonstrate a clear development path for potential hires, and to build a culture that makes people want to stay. Compensation is just one part of that: In a recent World 50 study, 90% of members said they were increasing wages either somewhat or a lot. But members were clear that while pay raises are table stakes, the only way to retain employees is by asking them what they are seeking in a career and—so long as it is financially feasible—making it happen.
This emphasis on people goes far beyond the human resources function. Said Domingo Mirón, chief risk officer and market unit lead of Spain, Portugal, and Israel at Accenture: “I now spend a large part of my time on people. Now I’m responsible for making sure all 20,000 employees in Spain, Portugal, and Israel are engaged, committed, and happy working at Accenture.” Mirón then explained that despite the organization’s huge size, Accenture thinks of employees not as a monolith but as a collection of individuals. “Growing their skills, being on an interesting project—those are just as important as compensation. We changed our coaching processes and talent planning to be closer to the needs of every individual.” That also has implications for managers. “The flexible, responsible work model requires managers to be work organizers,” he said. “They used to be work planners.”
Members have tried to address employee needs through employee wellness and mental health programs. In 2020, cloud storage company Dropbox decided to shift to a “virtual-first” work model. As part of this shift, every employee receives an annual “perks allowance”—a stipend they can use on anything, such as wellness, home office equipment, or child care. The idea behind this benefit is to give employees the flexibility to focus their perks on what really matters to them.
Making progress in diversity and inclusion has become another huge focus for everyone in the C-suite. A full 92% of respondents said they were spending either slightly or significantly more time on diversity and inclusion than they were three years ago. For many executives, it was a wake-up call—proof they did not fully understand what their own employees faced on a regular basis. Said Simon Zinger of gaming company Entain: “After the tragic events of George Floyd and the real awakening of how important it is to deal with racial injustice, I looked at what I was doing myself as a person. I knew that more should be done and could be done, but I didn’t know where to start.” Zinger’s soul searching led to a shift in focus, not only on recruiting diverse talent but also on establishing metrics such as measuring retention to ensure underrepresented groups are, in fact, succeeding once on staff.
Left unsaid is the question of whether increased employee power will last should the world fall into a global recession, something many members think is looming. If companies begin to lay people off, and shareholders clamor for better results, will the pendulum swing back again?
Entain:
Responsive Leadership
In 2020, executives around the globe found themselves called to publicly demonstrate their commitment to their employees. It was the latest proof point that leaders must stand for more than just the bottom line, and that such qualities as empathy and purpose had become the new standards for a successful leader.
Amid this turbulence, Simon Zinger, group general counsel for Entain, decided to craft a vision statement of sorts—The General Counsel Oath—that would serve as a touchstone for legal leaders, compliance officers, and ethics officers. Zinger insisted that what leaders needed in this moment was not a to-do list, but a “framework for how [they] behave.”
“It was quite a chaotic time, in the sense that you had a number of companies making commitments,” Zinger said. “You had a number of general counsels making commitments as well. And I was just looking and searching for the right path or the right answers or the right approach, or the right framework, and I couldn’t find it.” So he drafted what he thought of as a “roadmap”—not just for himself and his team, but for others like him who felt unmoored.
In addition to providing guidance on diversity, equity, and inclusion topics, the oath helped articulate, in Zinger’s words, “How you work with your team, how you work with your colleagues, how you help your company have a more positive social impact—and then how you treat other people just as human beings.” When the oath was first launched in August 2020, Zinger shared it with a number of journalists and other general counsels, which resulted in not only press buzz around this new framework, but also endorsement of the oath by several notable organizations.
Some leaders have shared the oath with their own teams, “using it as a platform to explore the areas in the oath and to communicate their personal commitment as the team leaders,” he said, while others have used it for more personal and professional development or guidance. Asked what section is most meaningful to him, Zinger said, “The last line: ‘I recognize that my skills and leadership position are privileges, and I will use them to advance the well-being of the people, organizations, and communities with whom I interact.’” A downloadable version of the oath can be found here.
