Best & Worst of Employer Branding: May 2022
There was no shortage of news about what it means to be a worker in the United States this month.
Netflix laid off more than 150 workers, and it looks like a lot of them worked in DEI. Goldman Sachs rolled out a new unlimited PTO policy that really isn’t a vacation policy at all. Apple may have intimidated Apple Store workers trying to unionize.
On the other hand, major employers took a public stand on reproductive rights, more Starbucks stores and workers at Activision Blizzard jumped into the union movement, and Virgin Atlantic announced that it will let crew members display their tattoos on the clock.
It was hard to pick a best and worst this month, but two stories particularly stood out, perhaps because they’re so illustrative of what we’re all working so hard for: our basic rights, and equity for all.
The best: Salesforce relocates staff for access to abortion care
The Supreme Court is about to yank basic healthcare rights from millions of people by tearing down Roe v. Wade, and employers are standing up to this massive encroachment on bodily autonomy.
Jordan Novet at CNBC reported that Salesforce has said that for employees living in a state that restricts access to safe abortions, the company will pay their travel expenses to another state for the procedure, or will help them relocate altogether.
Even though the company is earning a lot of positive press for the announcement, it doesn’t seem to be an attention-seeking move made for the wrong reasons. The new policy was announced to employees via Slack (as opposed to press release), and the company declined to comment for Novet’s CNBC story as well as this one from Business Insider.
Salesforce isn’t the only company that’s said it will do what it takes to give their employees access to healthcare rights. Starbucks, Tesla, and Microsoft will pay travel costs, according to Ginger Adams Otis and Jennifer Calfas at The Wall Street Journal, and so will Citi, Yelp, and Amazon.
There are three forces that affect the way work is done in the States: culture, companies, and government. In this case, companies are standing up where the government has failed. We love to see it.
The worst: Wells Fargo lies about DEI
Emily Flitter at The New York Times reported this month that Wells Fargo was conducting fake interviews with women and people of color.
Turns out a former executive who had been with the bank for more than twenty years raised concerns that managers were told to interview “diverse” candidates even though a new hire had already been selected. When that executive said something about the bogus practice, which was meant to satisfy “diversity quotas” on paper, he was fired.
This guy wasn’t the only one who saw it happen. Flitter wrote that six other current or former employees confirmed this practice as well.
In case this wasn’t bad enough, let me remind you that in summer 2020, Wells Fargo’s CEO Charles Sharf said that they couldn’t reach diversity goals because of a lack of qualified Black talent.
According to a Reuters report, Sharf wrote the following in a company-wide memo: “While it might sound like an excuse, the unfortunate reality is that there is a very limited pool of black talent to recruit from.” He apparently reiterated this in a Zoom meeting around the same time.
Ultimately, companies that pay lip service to DEI will be exposed, like Wells Fargo has been (over and over), reinforcing, yet again, that your employer brand begins from within.
Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza writes about workplace culture, DEI, and hiring. Her work has appeared in Fast Company, From Day One, and InHerSight, among others.
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