Pocket Change: Employee activism and disinformation
Pocket Change is a monthly series of notes on disruption, authored by 18 Coffees co-founder Caleb Gardner. Be the first to read Pocket Change — subscribe to the email newsletter here.
Last week in a speech at Stanford, my old boss (or more accurately, my old boss’s boss’s boss), Barack Obama, made a strong case for regulating social media and disinformation, claiming “democracy will wither” if we do nothing. I was glad to see someone with such a big megaphone wading into such an important fight.
But something specific he said about employee advocacy caught my attention. The former president appealed directly to talent working at tech companies:
“You have the power to move things in the right direction. You can advocate for change, you can be part of this redesign – and if not, you can vote with your feet and go and work with companies that are trying to do the right thing.”
We’re in a unique moment for employee empowerment, and the president knows it. See also: the recent first-of-its-kind unionization of an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island; employee walkouts at Disney and Activision Blizzard. Amid a tight labor market, employees feel emboldened to speak up for their values.
For most companies, this trend speaks to the need to take principled stands on issues employees care about, and not shy away from engaging in issues when they matter to the company. Tactically, I also think it means putting a premium on internal communication and persuasion, just as much as external, so employees understand the decisions of leadership.
Will one employee speaking up make a real difference in the fight against disinformation? Not likely – at least, not on its own. Tech employee advocacy is nothing new, and so far, it seems to have made little impact on the decisions of the firms’ leaders. But the worldview of the Barack Obama I used to work for shined through in his speech: collective action is the only way the world changes.
Keeping an eye on:
HYBRID SWEET SPOTS — New research from HBS supports the idea that one or two days in the office provides workers with both flexibility and connection – as long as they aren’t coming in just to sit on Zoom calls.
BELONGING FEELINGS — Corporate policies alone aren’t enough to end discrimination. Employees have to feel like they belong.
ALGO WORDS — Automated moderation often results in posts about controversial topics getting removed or down-ranked in the algorithm. Creators are now using “algospeak” to get around it.
ESG FAILS — Sustainable investing is facing scrutiny in a market rocked by the conflict in Ukraine. Can it live up to the promise of doing well by doing good?
CARBON CALCULATORS — AWS is following in the footsteps of Microsoft and Google with a new tool to track your “Customer Carbon Footprint.”
THIRD PLACES — Remember the pure joy of having serendipitous conversations somewhere other than work or home? Me neither, but turns out we need them!
