The past four years have seen significant change in the communications environment, particularly as it relates to the role and remit of the communications executive. 

Following the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in prominence of social justice issues initially motivated by the death of George Floyd, communications and corporate affairs executives stepped up to counsel the C-suite on stakeholder responses – including broader guidance around pandemic-related concerns and stances taken on racial justice and other social issues. An array of issue-based pledges and commitments put new scrutiny on corporations in the public arena, putting communicators in the hot-seat when it came to steering company leadership. 

The pendulum has since swung back on social issues. Political polarization in the U.S. is at an all-time high, and increased public pressure from conservative activists like Robby Starbuck has made C-suite leaders more cautious on social issues. Employee activism has increasingly been met with a firm hand from corporations, and leaders have taken a harder stance on return-to-office mandates. In our work as counselors and advisors to the functional structure of the communications organization, we had one overarching question: Where does this environment leave the communications leader?

We spoke anonymously with a dozen large-company communications leaders with an eye toward assessing the change in scope, role, remit, function, and design for the communications organization associated with the myriad changes observed since 2020. 

A natural straw man hypothesis for our research was that communications leaders might fade back into the background under a more cautious posture from their leadership. Instead, what we found was a more nuanced position, both more valuable and vulnerable than ever before. The past several years have heralded closer alignment between corporate communications and the rest of the C-suite. As their role has become more elevated, communications leaders have nonetheless been dependent on the CEO for position and influence. This piece has not changed: Specifically, many reported a refocusing on the “nuts and bolts” of the business, with fewer calories burned on issues and pledges, but more dialogue on the long-term advantage of purpose-based initiatives. 

Our interviews revealed a shifting CEO agenda dictating changes to the communications function. Our interviewees pointed to a more complex regulatory environment, which has drawn the C-suite more deeply into the political environment under guidance from a broader corporate affairs function. They pointed to the pace of change, particularly as it relates to the rise of artificial intelligence, as a key mover on functional and structural organization. They called out the centralization and consolidation of businesses, and a broader trend toward efficiency and supply chain resilience, as driving factors both in their own organizations and in those they serve. And they spoke at length about the role of employee activism, particularly around core labor issues – pay equity, hours and working conditions, bargaining rights – which dictate new considerations and questions about the role and accountabilities of corporate leadership.  

In 2014, United Minds first discovered an important global trend in brand reputation: employees in countries worldwide were – unprompted – speaking out on behalf of their organizations using their nascent social media platforms. Ten years and two additional studies later, we checked back on the state of employee activism, from current levels of engagement to perspectives on leadership. Our findings span 14 countries across six continents. 

What we found should leave every employer asking how they can continue to upend and recalibrate employee engagement efforts so that they earn value and drive maximum impact: on satisfaction, on retention, on productivity and on advocacy. 

Tech employees are motivated and satisfied, but wary of leadership and change.

United Minds asked employees across a number of industries about their experience at work, including relationships with colleagues, the organization and leadership. Across all industries people have positive sentiments towards their experience – 66% of people rate their experience as being positive. Of all the sectors we sampled, Tech had the most satisfied people. 77% of the people we spoke to in the Tech industry rated their experience positively.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, tech employees are the least likely to be open to new opportunities, with 29% saying they would be willing to chance jobs tomorrow vs. the 40% benchmark. At the same time, they are significantly more open to joining a union (58% vs. Benchmark 46%).

Gen Z employees are more optimistic, less satisfied and ready to take a stand.

In our latest study tracking 10 years of employee sentiments, we discovered most generations agree across 50 different statements. The good news is their experiences are largely positive—and yet, Gen Z (46%) along with Millennials (48%) are the most open to changing jobs tomorrow if they had the chance (vs. Benchmark 40%).

Low engagement for healthcare employees makes leaders’ fears of retention real. Over the past decade, our research proves that employee engagement has gone up across multiple industries, using a benchmark of 50 statements about workplace experience.

That’s good news for employees, right? For the most part, it is, but there’s one industry that lags behind: Healthcare.

Across industries, employees’ average agreement with 50 positive statements about workplace experience, organization and leadership is 66%. But for employees who work in healthcare, that rate is significantly lower at only 54% (-12%).

Download our Employees Rising Healthcare Briefing to review key findings of where healthcare employees’ experience in the workplace lags significantly behind the average of all employees and what this means for healthcare leaders.

Over the past six months, we’ve seen a surge in clients asking for support with their Gen-AI transformation efforts. There’s a growing recognition that Gen AI is not just another technological shift—it’s a transformation unlike any before. As businesses move from pilots to full-scale adoption, they can’t afford to overlook the psychological responses to this change. Working closely with heads of AI and digital transformation leaders, we’ve gained an understanding into why Gen AI adoption demands a distinct approach, how it diverges from past digital transformations, and why the human side of change is now more crucial than ever. 

Why AI adoption needs a different approach 

1. It’s learning by doing like never before – in training teams around Gen-AI we learnt very quickly that Gen AI is best understood through hands-on exploration, as its power truly unfolds when people use it directly. Unlike past digital transformations, there are no strict guidelines; it’s intuitive, and personal discovery is essential for shifting mindsets and forming a new relationship with technology. 

Overcome this by: Leaders need to trust their teams’ abilities to explore and grow. Encourage this with behavioral nudges that build confidence, and set up regular touchpoints for sharing successes, failures, and innovations. 

2. People come to AI with diverse perceptions, biases and expectations – Gen-AI is forcing people to reflect on the purpose and meaning of work, and critically their role within it (self-determination theory). The fear of the unknown, combined with the status-quo bias means people are reacting in more extreme ways, and there is far more loss aversion to overcome. Layer on top of that change fatigue from years of digital transformation efforts, and you’ve got yourself a pressure cooker for resistance.  

Overcome this by: meeting people where they’re at, overcommunicating and being completely transparent (and human) about both the tools and their limitations, and about the change curve people may experience. Whatever you do, don’t let resistance hold you back, go where the energy is (because there’s as much curiosity as there is resistance) and create moments in time for celebration, excitement and engagement.  

3. Building the plane while it’s taking off couldn’t be more true – In many cases organisations don’t know what the future state looks like. They may have a few use cases which are essential in telling the story and showing potential, but the end goal is still unclear. Tools are evolving and being built every day, we’ve only just scratched the surface of what the possibilities are. For many, that’s exciting, for others it brings a sense of uncertainty and fear. Lewin’s Change Model which encourages organisations to unfreeze, change then refreeze must happen simultaneously or at record-speed to be successful. In many ways the ‘refreeze’ stage isn’t possible; people will constantly be in the state of flux. A growth mindset becomes essential.  

Overcome this by: Tackling it and explaining it head on. Don’t try and pretend to have all the answers. Involve people in the process of defining the destination but leave that open to evolution as more knowledge is built.  

4. Safety is paramount (both psychological and legal) – creating a culture of constant experimentation is essential, and that is only possible if psychological safety is in place. People need to feel comfortable to try and fail, whilst critically understanding the guardrails, legal and ethical implications particularly when Automation Bias can lead us to over-trust AI outputs. It’s in many ways a juxtaposition, one that requires careful thought and a highly tailored approach.  

Overcome this by: Be clear about the rules and open about the legal and compliance implications of using Gen AI. Invest in culture change efforts and behaviour change pilots to shift mindsets and ways of working. Critically, ensure leaders are driving accountability at the same time as creating the culture of psychological safety; a careful balance to strike.  

5. Leaders are learning too – whereas in most change programmes, top down leadership role modelling is the first priority, with Gen-AI adoption, the most senior leaders are often the last to adapt their ways of working. Of course, they know at an organisational level it needs to happen and are keen advocates, but on a personal level they’re often resistant to trying it themselves. This needs to be overcome, but at the same time your greatest influencers may not be who you expect.  

Overcome this by: Invest in 1:1 coaching with leaders to help overcome any fear or resistance. Focus on creating a groundswell of influencers and champions at all levels of the organisation, use your Gen Z employees, give them a voice at the table of decision making, offer reverse coaching experiences for managers.  

This is arguably the biggest shake up of work as we know it since the first Industrial Revolution. To overlook the human aspect of this change would be to admit defeat before you’ve even begun. Join us at the upcoming Business Change Conference on 27 November where we’ll be joined by in-house Gen-AI experts who’ll share their learnings of Gen-AI adoption.  

#UnionizeStarbucks. #StarbucksWorkersUnited.

The collective outcry of disgruntled Starbucks employees this summer was just one of many examples of people taking their issues with working conditions to the court of public opinion – social media – that we have seen over the past few years. And they were effective. By month’s end, despite a US Supreme Court ruling that favored Starbucks, consumers were siding with the baristas, investors were selling their shares at a loss, and union negotiations were on track to deliver to workers a better contract.   

Our new research shows that employees today are seeking agency – the ability to make an impact and the recognition for doing so – above all else from their employers. Those employers who do not offer opportunities for impact and value risk their employees grabbing it on their own terms, thereby changing consumer sentiment, influencing market valuations, and remaking their workplace.  

This trend marks the latest evolution in how employees are engaging with their employers online; something we first observed in and have been tracking since 2014. That was the year of social campaigns so viral—remember the Ice Bucket Challenge?—they broke the Internet. Research we pioneered then revealed a startling development: engaging employees on social media resulted in brand messaging traveling 10X further than corporate channels. For organizations willing to invest in developing and empowering champion networks, the rewards were stratospheric—and the risks were low.  

Fast forward to 2017, when we witnessed that advocacy morphing into something far more volatile. With one blog, you may recall, a disgruntled employee at Uber managed to dethrone its CEO. Research we conducted that year affirmed the trend: employees were gaining significant traction online by calling out their employer for unfair practices (real or perceived) or calling on them to take a stand on issues within or outside of the workplace. The risk/reward ratio, for employers, had dramatically reversed.  

In 2021 and even more so today, we see that while winning brand advocacy is still possible, it’s by no means a given. To be sure, many employees have taken at least one action to advocate for their employers in the last 12 months—but these numbers have declined by close to or more than double digits since 2014. At the same time, employees’ activist positions have remained the same or slightly increased.  

Faced with these headwinds, employers are not powerless. Our client work worldwide, bolstered by our ten years of research, highlights exactly how you can ride the momentum of employee advocacy while curbing the tide of rising employee activism.  

• Understand and build a strategy to leverage the proven formula for building advocacy: multi-variate analysis shows that employees who feel 1) connected to and proud of their CEO, 2) that they have opportunities to develop and grow and 3) are generally satisfied with their workplace experience are significantly more likely to proactively advocate on behalf of their employers. Ensuring that employee engagement plans include robust executive visibility strategies, are tied closely to meaningful learning and development, and can be measured to ensure satisfaction will help improve outcomes. 
• Address root causes of activism before they can sprout: employees who experience bad behavior in the workplace – from discrimination to micro aggressions – are understandably more likely to take a public position against their employer. There is no place for this toxicity at work, and employers must continue to do everything they can to identify it through culture risk assessments and remediate it by intervening where it persists.  

Investing time in understanding what issues employees – and all important stakeholders – care about when it comes to navigating societal issues will also help get ahead of potential activism. A strong societal issues framework that balances stakeholder perspectives with organizational values and the realities of the business will allow for better coordinated planning as expected and emerging issues come up. 

Based on the above, the questions we advise our clients to consider include:  

• Do we create alignment across and points of connection with (C-suite, region, unit, site)? 
• Do we have a plan for navigating societal issues to ensure consistency, speed and alignment? 
• Are we consistently revisiting employee life-cycle from on-boarding to continued engagement with alumni for opportunities to strengthen engagement, learning and development? 
• Are we facilitating mentorship and sponsorship across the organization? 

While the proven approaches increasing employee advocacy and mitigating activism are relatively straightforward, they are anything but simple. We work closely with our colleagues at United Minds across North America, South America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East to help clients anticipate, minimize and address organizational risk, while at the same time improving employee engagement, satisfaction, and ultimately, performance.

Published originally in Compass for the Chaos.

In 2014, United Minds first discovered an important global trend in brand reputation: employees in countries worldwide were – unprompted – speaking out on behalf of their organizations using their nascent social media platforms.

By 2017, we observed that the balance of employee advocacy had shifted more toward employee activism. This was fueled by a gap between what the company presented about itself externally and the actual experience of working there, which was a threat that leaders needed to be aware of and address.

In the midst of global upheaval – 2021 – we found that employees were searching for purpose and the ability to make an impact on the workplace.

These prescient findings appeared in our first study, Employees Rising: Seizing the Opportunity in Employee Activism (2014), our follow-up study, The Employer Brand Credibility Gap: Bridging the Divide (2017) and our next study, The Contribution Effect (2021).

Spurred by the findings of these studies, we checked back on the state of employee activism, from current levels of engagement to perspectives on leadership. Our findings span 14 countries across six continents.

What we found will surprise you.

It will also likely leave every employer asking how they can continue to upend and recalibrate employee engagement efforts so that they earn value and drive maximum impact: on satisfaction, on retention, on productivity and on advocacy.

Thank you for reading – let us know what you think. We look forward to hearing from you!

Leaders today face unprecedented risk if they fail to successfully navigate sharply conflicting demands from stakeholders both inside and outside of the company. Read about the real (but blinded) challenges leaders are facing over on the Page Society blog.

There are no safe topics for CEOs today – but not speaking up may do more harm than good. Stakeholders from all sides continue to press corporate leaders to take a position on a range of societal issues, but leaders find themselves boxed in by conflicting expectations.

In the last five years it has become increasingly common to see CEOs take public positions on societal issues and events to demonstrate they, and the companies they lead, are in touch, engaged and empathetic. Which issues require or benefit from executive acknowledgement is still up for debate, but in the multistakeholder landscape in which all companies operate, balancing the positions, preferences and expectations of diverse stakeholder groups makes the determinations of when, how and to whom that much more complicated.

To bring some insight and clarity to the ongoing challenge of multistakeholder issue engagement, Myriant by United Minds, in collaboration with the USC Annenberg School fielded a survey in February-March 2024 exploring the question of whether and how companies should continue to take public, or even internal, positions on potentially divisive societal issues from sustainability, DE&I, and reproductive rights, to the 2024 election and climate change.