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Here’s a new topic that Sharon Phillips and I have been exploring: employee activists. In this podcast, we defined employee activists as those who vigorously advocate for their companies and leadership to support or oppose a cause or issue.
After learning that Google’s employees sent a petition to their CEO, I recently wrote a blog about employee activists on LinkedIn, which sparked a great conversation. Here are just a few topics we discussed:
- The power of employees’ voice — and why they’re not afraid to use it
- Why employee activists are different than employee ambassadors
- Weber Shandwick’s study on employee activists’ profiles
- Povaddo’s study on the rise of employee activism in the workplace
- How communicators can respond
- And much more.
And we expect the employee activist will only increase. Just imagine those Parkland students entering our workforce in a matter of years. Sharon and I believe this will greatly affect crisis and employee communications. Do you?
The world badly needs employee activists, and here’s one way to make their numbers explode: create CSR-focused, profit-making joint ventures between 1st World corporations and 3rd World mega co-ops. Co-ops being employee-owned should narrow down wealth disparities. Joint ventures spread out 3rd World-wide should create huge new markets for involved partner companies, which translates to rising incomes for their employees. Employee activists, fix the world!