Giving Compass' Take:

· Writing for BSR, Alison Taylor touches on the immense impact employees have on their company's strategy and reputation and why companies should value this stakeholder group. 

· How has employee activism driven social change in recent years?

· Check out this article explaining the growing trend of employee activism.


Over the past few years, household-name companies have experienced employee petitions, strikes, and walkouts over a range of issues, including strategic investments and partnerships, sexual harassment, immigration, and pay and benefits for contract workers.

For companies accustomed to thinking about stakeholder engagement as an external-facing exercise, the strength and speed of staff unrest has come as a stunning development. In April, BSR updated its popular 2011 report, “Five-Step Approach to Stakeholder Engagement,” to reflect developments in the sustainability and human rights fields over the past eight years. One of the most significant trends that BSR is tracking is the emergence of employees as a newly empowered and vocal stakeholder group with an unprecedented ability to impact a company’s strategy and reputation.

Much of the analysis of employee activism has viewed it exclusively as a phenomenon driven by workers in the technology sector. Technology workers are often (though not always) highly skilled, and questions of technological advancement are inherently inseparable from those of political and social identity. The utopian culture that prevails in Silicon Valley also makes corporate values a matter of profound importance to tech employees.

It would nonetheless be a big mistake for companies in other industries to overlook the potential for employee activism within their own staff. Strikes and protests have affected consumer products giants like Nike and McDonald’s, as well as companies with gig economy business models such as Uber Technologies.

Read the full article about employee activism by Alison Taylor at BSR.