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29 March: People count on businesses to act. So what should they do?

Posted on March 29, 2020 Leave a Comment


The 2020 Edelman trust barometer – surveying 34,000 people in 28 countries – showed that 74% of people expect their CEOs to take the lead on change to address global issues. In the context of COVID-19, a follow up survey with 10,000 people in 10 countries re-affirms that people trust their employers to respond effectively and responsibly to the pandemic, and 78% want businesses to act to protect employees and local communities.

So what should businesses do? I asked 4 experts working closely with businesses in the context of the crisis: Peter Bakker, Lise Kingo, David Nabarro, and Anthony Renshaw. First, they pointed to businesses’ duty of care going beyond the health and safety of employees, to also secure employment continuity. Second, they highlighted the key role of businesses in providing medically-verified information to employees – important as employer communications is the most credible source of information about COVID-19. Third, they suggested that businesses find ways to support health systems. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) lists such actions on its website, and the UN Global Compact calls on business leaders to support workers and communities.
Smaller local companies, providing employment to the majority of people around the globe, are the hardest impacted by the crisis. For WHO COVID-19 Special Envoy David Nabarro, all should support SMEs where governments might not provide direct stimulus package. UN Global Compact CEO Lise Kingo is working with global companies to keep the SMEs of their supply chains in business. For SOS International Medical Director Anthony Renshaw, local SMEs which are still open can contribute to the response by adjusting their practices such as defining specific shopping hours for the elderly, or their processes to manufacture supplies required by the health system. Looking forward, all interviewees noted the opportunity to rethink business models; reimagine the social contract of business with society; and move towards a model of integrated capitalism. And putting things further in perspective, WBCSD CEO Peter Bakker argued that this crisis was “a warning that the power of nature is stronger than any human constructs”.

For The Verge’s Casey Newton, who is usually quite critical, big techs’ response to COVID-19 has so far earned them brownie points. They have promoted high-quality information. They have offered money, supplies, and jobs. And this has put the big tech backlash on pause.

My quote this week is from NY Governor Cuomo’s 24 March briefing [35’26’’]:  “And at the end of the day my friends, even if it is a long day, and this is a long day, love wins. Always. And it will win again through this virus.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: business, COVID19, employment, health, technology, trust

17 March 2017

Posted on March 17, 2017 Leave a Comment

Sebastian Strangio’s “Welcome to the post-human rights world” shows how the global rise of populism takes a toll on the human rights movement. He also points to areas of dynamism in the civic space where NGOs are rethinking their strategies and narratives. This led me to a lecture by Philip Alston who paints a bleak picture: “These are extraordinarily dangerous times, unprecedentedly so, at least in my life time.” He asks the human rights community to be innovative and offers 4 strategies to international NGOs:  (i) create more synergies between international and local human rights movements, (ii) embrace economic and social rights (in addition to civil and political rights), (iii) use persuasion techniques that go beyond stating principles, and (iv) engage with new actors such as large corporations. Alston was in my “purist human rights guru” mental box so this made me pay attention. It also led me to another human rights guru, John Ruggie, who in a recent speech, asked businesses to step up their game and go beyond do-no-harm and “shared value creation”. He argued that the single largest contribution businesses could make is to drive respect for human rights throughout their global value chains as this could impact over 2 billion people. I felt that these were important readings at a time when the UN leadership reflects on the future of the normative agenda while the World Economic Forum ponders on the future of human rights.

Meyers et al’s “The nexus of microwork and impact sourcing: implications for youth employment” reviews 90 documents and interviews 40 stakeholders to give the latest picture of the microwork landscape. Microwork refers to outsourced online micro-tasks such as data entry or image tagging and is a market projected to grow to $2.5 billion and to provide work for 2.9 million people by 2020. The hype around the microwork potential for development peaked a few years ago when many warned of a possible race to the bottom with very low pay rates and no benefits — the creation of digital sweatshops. This paper looks at the combination of microwork and impact sourcing, a business model where companies work with intermediaries who deliberately employ disadvantaged or vulnerable populations. The paper also gives interesting illustrations of impact sourcing intermediaries training their workers, introducing them to the formal economy and serving as bridges towards better employment opportunities. But this remains a space with little regulation and no social safeguards. Connecting this conversation to Ruggie’s call for action, one can see how the promotion of human rights through these digital outsourcing platforms could have a big impact on young people and their employment prospects.

My graph this week is from Ben Parker’s “US funding for the UN in chart” illustrating the break-down per agency of the $10 billion annual US contribution to the UN. To be read in light of the announced (but not yet specified) cuts to the UN system.

 

 

In line with the overall theme this week, here is a quote from Kara Swisher in her Ezra Klein interview [47’35”]: “Whatever you think of Silicon Valley, at least they make stuff, stuff that changes lives. IMB was one of the first to do integration and gave their employees rights, so did Apple. I put less of my faith in policy makers than I do in businesses.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: business, employment, finance, government, human rights, UN

27 January 2017

Posted on January 27, 2017 Leave a Comment

Read Pierre Bayard’s “How to talk about books you haven’t read” and feel better. Or don’t read it and try to engage in a conversation about it. Not only is this ok, but it will also enrich the conversation and enhance your creativity. This is Bayard’s thesis. He first explores different forms of “non-reading”: a. the book you have never opened, b. the book you only have heard of, c. the book you have skimmed, and d. the book you have forgotten. Is d. better than a.? It does not matter says Bayard. What matters is to change one’s mindset: consider non-reading as an activity, and make a clear distinction between reading a book and talking about it. The latter involves a third party and should be guided by the context and nature of your relationship with that person, not the content of the book. Engaging in the conversation at that level can be done in different ways: by referring to the broader “collective library” to which a particular book belongs, connecting to arguments other people make, or simply using one’s creativity to invent what the book is about. In the end, for Bayard, it is about talking about one’s “inner library”. Bayard gives guidance about how to talk about a book you haven’t read with a large audience, a professor, the author (!?), and a loved one. He uses literature classics to illustrate his points. Like this Oscar Wilde quote: “I never read a book I must review; it prejudices you so.” It is a refreshing and funny book. So drop the guilt and test it out. And if you want more, there is a sequel: “How to talk about places you’ve never been“.

Tristan Harris’ “Tech companies design your life, here’s why you should care” is a good wake up call. Google’s former product philosopher argues that big techs are destroying our agency capacity by high jacking our attention through a bunch of tricks that feed our needs to be linked, looked, and liked. We’ve all thought about this before. But we also know that changing habits is hard. And in this case we are battling something bigger than us: hundreds of machine-augmented brains who spend their days thinking about how to keep us on the screen. Tech products are designed to hook us via instant gratifications that fill in any spare time we have, leaving no room for complex feelings like boredom or sadness to sink in. While it is problematic for us, it is detrimental for children and their emotional and social development. One can’t fix this alone. It’s all about changing the design, says Harris, so that tech products are aligned with a higher concept of a life well spent. And he believes it is possible. We brought Harris to our Conversation with Thought Leaders series to talk about “ethical design for digital natives” and it was enlightening.

My graph this week is from ILO’s “World employment social outlook: Trends 2017” which shows, using Gallup data, the share of working-age population (aged 15+) willing to permanently migrate outside of their countries. This number increased between 2009-2016 for all parts of the world but South (eastern) Asia and the Pacific. It is yet another signal that international migration either forced or voluntary, either conflict-, climate- or unemployment-generated, is on the rise. The report is worth a scan as it unpacks data on the growth of global unemployment per regions and gender (summary here, videos and interactive maps, here).

 

 

My quote this week is from Jim Estill in “The Canadian who spent C$1.5 million to rescue more than 200 Syrian refugees”: “I still don’t see what the big deal is. And I’m surprised more people don’t step up and do it. I didn’t want to grow old and say I stood by and did nothing. So I decided to do my small part.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: book review, employment, ethics, migration, refugee, technology

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