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A new activist tactic is targeting individual businesses, concentrating all of the movement’s energy and resources on forcing that one business to bend to the group’s will. These instances are usually based on business practices that reflect the company’s values, such as support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. How the business responds has a direct impact on the experiences of employees who interact with customers on a day-to-day basis, especially in retail and other customer-facing sectors. How communicators can help both the company and employees weather these storms is the focus of this short midweek FIR episode.

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, July 24

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat each Thursday at 1 p.m. ET. For credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request the credentials in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Neville’s Asides blog is also available.

Link from this report:

• Middle fingers, complaints: Workers caught in culture wars face harassment (ABC News)
• Managing a Team with Conflicting Political Views (Harvard Business Review)
• Leadership in a Politically Charged Age (Harvard Business Review)
• How to help bridge social and political divides among employees (PR Daily)
• Keeping the political divide from dividing employees (Kearney)
• 3 Strategies to Address Political Polarization in the Workplace (Harvard Business Review)

About Shel Holtz

Shel Holtz, ABC (Accredited Business Communicator), is director of Internal Communications at Webcor, a commercial general contractor headquartered in San Francisco. Before joining Webcor, Shel spent 21 years as principal of Holtz Communication + Technology. In addition to integrating technology into communications strategies, his expertise includes strategic communications planning, change management, organizational culture, business initiatives and communications research. Full bio

About Neville Hobson

Neville Hobson is a communicator, social strategist, consultant, digital change agent, writer, and podcaster. He is co-founder and co-host of the 'For Immediate Release' podcast. Since 2000, his career has focused on working with organisations globally to help them leverage his experiences, knowledge and subject-matter expertise of social networks, social media marketing, analytics and insights reporting, to create and build foundations for authentic engagement and to expand online reach and influence. Full bio