Good morning

and thank you for joining at uh 1030 Eastern. Um And it's time for our session to begin and

I welcome you um to our session related to um employee activism and, and why as

employers or leaders, it's our responsibility to recognize it

and um protect ourselves and our companies as we do that as well. Um So, um I'm gonna get started here just a second. My name is Amy Roy. I'm the head of people at, namely, namely is an HR technology company based in New

York City um and provide services

um to manage hr operations for

employers. Today, we're going to talk about why. Uh this is a topic for hr to dress. I'm using the word hr you can just as well use any people leader as people leaders are all responsible uh and are observing employee behavior and how that may impact um other employees. Uh what employees are actually looking for from an employer perspective and then how to start thinking through how you may take some actions to address this topic. Um Focusing really on uh things that happen within the US if you're here from another country welcome. Um What I would recommend is check the laws um and legalities within the country that you're in to see how those apply. So, why should we address employee activism? Well, you know, this is a topic that comes up quite a bit. Um And the short

answer as to why is because

that's what your employees are going to expect. Uh, and as uh different generations enter the workforce, we'll look at some information in just a moment on how uh that could impact them, wanting even more information about how they might want to do it. Now, when we look at employee activism, there's really two ways that we could look at it. There's the right to speak up within your own workplace. I don't think that the work rules within my

organization are

fair. We saw that start in the early 19 hundreds with labor unions, employees feeling that they could speak up about their rights and feeling that they should have a voice in their rights to speak up as employees continue to go through. We, we also feel that they may have a place outside of the workplace and we'll talk about that in just a moment. But how do employees feel about the workplace themselves and their ability to speak up? You can see 80

4% of workers think they have the right to speak up

in support of their own rights.

And they also feel like they 75%

feel like they can speak up against their own employer. So if they don't feel comfortable, they feel that they have the right. It's not, it's not just, oh, I want to do it. It's actually a right of mind to go ahead and say something. We see this diff in different generations as well as you see that the younger someone is and this is focusing on millennials as the youngest generation. Although we know that there is another generation now entering the workforce as they enter the work, they believe that this is their right. Even baby boomers who if you think about baby boomers are people typically above uh 55 years old,

that generation

uh feels less like uh it because just the way that they grew up and how organizations may have worked in the past. But even they feel now that they have the right to speak up as well. There's a

lot of generational research

around generation Z and their ability

to feel

um that they should be able to be themselves at work. The Center for gen generational Kinetics. There's a lot of studying on both uh generation Z and millennials and about uh you know, what comes up when they ask those people what's most important in them, an

employer, it's the

company culture and the ability to be themselves and being yourself ties into feeling that you have the right to speak up. If you feel that something is not right now, we also have to think about employee activism in terms of employees being uh wanting to take a stand on issues outside of the workplace issues that they see happening um within our world, whether they be political, social, environmental, um employees feel that they have a right to go ahead and take a stand.

Um And so employees want to be heard, 40% of people in the state um that was done, say that they have raised their voices in some way, um around their workplace. Um Whether that be just uh in a protest,

being writing letters, posting something on social

media that they feel that they have the right to be heard. And we know that because they feel the right to be heard, they'll also take action outside of work. And so when we think about taking action outside of work, we as employers then say, well, how does that translate into what they may bring back to work with them or are the actions that they're taking outside of work uh support within the values that we have as an organization?

So what do we, we know this is going to happen? So it's our responsibility to think about now, how are we going to deal with it?

And certainly

I would say, um, you know, in the last 12 months, 13 months, um this has become more and more of an issue. Um Not that it hasn't always been something that we have seen and an issue is probably the wrong word. I would say something that we have to address or expect it to be addressed just given the amount of things that have changed within the world. And of course, that it was um in the US in election year. All right. So this is really the key piece of what you have to think about um as an employer, as you uh think about whether or not you're going to take any actions. So think of a scenario, um, where someone goes, for example, to a protest after work. Well, where do they work? What do they do plays a very big part in it. Um, did they leave

work after hours or, or did they take, um, you know, or did

they walk out just to go in a tent that certainly could have a place? Certainly. Um, whether or not, you know, you're in a state that's at will. Now, if you're at a state that's at will and for those of you who aren't familiar with that term that says that, you know, the employee can leave at any time and you as an employer can ask them to leave at any time. Well, if someone does something that you really feel that wasn't in line with what your organization stands for, um, then, you know, you would,

you would say, well, I have

the right to fire them. We're an employee, we're at an employee at will state. Well, there are different rules related to people's right to protest. Um, and I think the real piece is that regardless if you're at, in an, at Will State, um, you may or may not have as many freedoms around how people behave from a protest perspective. Um There are certain states that put protections around the ability to participate in peaceful protests. California, Colorado, Louisiana, New York, or some of those states. Now, that does not mean that, you know, someone can go to a protest and then get into a fight with someone and that would be protected as soon as someone start, you know, takes that next step and then, you know, is, is in a, in a fight, then that's a different type of way that you may wanna look at their behavior and whether or not how you feel about them, um and their participation, what I would say is that your company values can really help you put parameters

around

how you approach this. If you have a strong parameter about um equal rights, then people are going to anticipate that their uh actions are uh focused on equal rights. Um There's also the first

amendment there, the right to a freedom of speech. Now there are limits

on a freedom of speech under an employer, an employer can define certain rules. But again, that depends on the state that you're in and what those rules are and um how are you applying them. Uh So all of these factors

are really critical in thinking

through, um, whether or not people are at risk. Now,

of course, seek legal counsel whenever you're,

um, having these kinds of conversations. Um, what I wanna share is that there are protections in some places, but there's also a lot of leeway for

employers in how

you may behave and what you wanna do. Um, there was recently in, in the news and organization um that uh two organizations actually that posted that they were um you

know, not going to allow this

within their workplace and that's their choice. Um What I would say is that based on the fact that we're seeing the data is speaking to the fact that this is what employees are looking for, you know, making a policy like that would then um make, you know, organizations, you know, potentially um lose employees or have a harder time in recruiting top talent.

So what you're thinking about in terms of the policies, in terms of how you're thinking about these things will directly impact whether or not your employees want to stick with you. And, and given the fact that I think we're all seeing a lot of movement within the job market uh post coming out of this pandemic, at least here in the United States. Um We all have to rethink what our priorities are as, as organizations and how we then want to go ahead and translate in to out how we um attract and recruit talent. And so if you're thinking about this for the first time, which I know a lot of organizations are because again, there's, this continues to evolve, change and a lot of events have happened over the last year. The first piece you have to be con thinking about is around consistency. You can't think about uh picking and choosing who you want policies to apply. Fly to so simple. Um It's not OK to say you can't go to a Black Lives Matter, but it is OK to go to something else, right?

If,

if you're going to

put a policy in place, it needs to be consistent and follow anything that people uh would go then and choose to do so stay consistent both within the policy itself. And of course, uh how you're applying it. Um Think the piece and this is where I was going about whether or not this impacts your employee brand is, you know, if you go ahead and embrace it as a positive force, knowing that this is what employees wanna do, especially

those entering the workforce, you can really use this

as a positive

to propel your organization's reputation

and your business. Think about all the organizations and the statements that you've seen

um put out, but more importantly, think about those organizations that you've actually seen take

action on,

on different issues again, could be environmental and how they're looking to save the planet

um to

social types of issues and how they're working towards homelessness and hunger or any type of political issues as well. Now, if you're writing that policy and you're thinking through how to put that together, being very clear about what you stand for as a corporation and a culture uh is very critical because that's going to help you if we already have that defined and most organizations have a vision and mission statement already defined, see how that vision and mission statement could support the policy or does it not?

And you have to rethink about what that purpose and culture really support. Uh Again, if you're putting it out there, that you're an organization that supports um you know, uh a better planet, then you better make sure that the actions and policies you have in place do that.

Well, maybe that's a policy around recycling, for example. Um But if you're not sure what's going on, listen to your employees, you can do that through a variety of different sources, whether that's engagement surveys, small focus groups, fireside chats, which are even smaller, you know, uh informal types of focus groups, have your employee, your leaders talk to your employees and find out what's on there.

Mind help, get

help um And understand where your people are. Maybe this is a, you know, a, a really big deal for employees and you're not addressing it or maybe you're doing all the right? Things in your employee's mind where your employees are in that spectrum right now is going to help you on your retention strategy. If you go ahead and cultivate a culture related to openness and transparency, that allows the dialogue to go further. Um You know, if you're only sharing one side of a story or if you're not sharing any side of the story, um Employees don't know where you stand in terms of support. Now, I'm not saying that you should take a stand and say we're going to support uh one political party or another. If this was a political conversation, I mean that you're sharing that it's OK to talk about both sides that there's not penalties for talking about, you know, an opposite side of any issue um that people feel comfortable in having an open dialogue that is respectful. Again, if you have respect as part of your values, that shouldn't be that difficult. Now, this is one that I think um as an organization we had to think about very differently uh about 13 months ago um after the death of George Floyd.

Um when we thought about what we were going to do from a next steps perspective and that's establish a response protocol. When something happens in the world, it could be a hurricane, a volcano, it could be uh a political event. These things could happen on a weekend, they could happen at o overnight when you, when you're thinking about them. How are you going to respond? Uh For us, we put a committee together um that includes both senior leadership as well as line employees who are part of our employee uh leaders of our employee resource groups. And we now have a com that we can call to for a response and that committee will help craft any communications will help craft next steps. We'll get the voice of other employees into the dialogue of how we're thinking about how we might be handling something. Um And so we now have a response protocol specifically for these types of events. You probably already have one. For sure. Uh After the pandemic probably had to, in some cases, scramble to think about how you're gonna respond to the fact that the world changed so quickly. Um over such a short period of days, same thing applies for how you think about um responding to events within the world. And then once you have that established, clearly communicate your values and make sure that your values are part of the solution.

Um uh Namely, we have a value related uh a, a value called give and it's about giving back to our each other, to our clients and to our community. And so that give value as we talk further and of course, my joined in um feel strongly about the give value as well. Um That as you go further in thinking through how you're going to communicate, tie your values into it and make it part of the solution. If your values already do this, this makes it so much easier. If your values don't do this, then that's harder. But what it does is allow you to use the language of your values in your communications. By doing this, you're supporting our organization and by doing this, you're not. And because you're not supporting our values of our organization, we're going to ask you to behave in a different way or change your language or hold that type of language after work or this is not appropriate based on who we are as an organization. So if you have those things really defined, it makes them that much easier. Now, I will tell you that the last part before I go to questions, which is not in this presentation is the support of your senior leadership team.

Um If you're not familiar with where your senior leadership team stands and you're in a position to be able to ask the

question, find

that out. I'm very fortunate. I have a CEO who is incredibly supportive, incredibly transparent and support everything that I just shared. I recognize that not every organization or every person on this call might be that lucky, but that would be a place to step in. And if um you know, if you need resources or data, feel free to connect with me

on linkedin. Um It's

Amy Roy and Jay on linkedin or Amy Roy, namely

Amy dot Roy,

namely, and I'm happy to share how um

you know, how to engage a CEO. I'm happy to connect my CEO.