Social media has become something in between a courtroom and a gladiatorial arena for organizations and individuals accused of misbehavior. It’s not much of an embellishment to suggest that a single accusatory tweet can wipe millions off a company’s stock price and it’s certainly true that mass walkouts organized on Twitter and Facebook can stop a company in its tracks, disrupting both productivity and the organizational hierarchy.
The Future of Work survey, released by law firm Herbert Smith Freehills at the end of 2019, revealed that 80% of surveyed enterprises globally expect to see a rise in activism among both employees and casual workers in the future.
Social media will continue to play a key role as a tool for both coordinating and amplifying workforce activism. Some 95% of respondents to the law firm’s survey said they expect to see an increase in their workforce making their voice heard through social media channels in the future.
It’s clear that ineffective internal reporting mechanisms are stimulating this trend for employees to seek their own platforms for speaking up and there is still a prevalent stigma around the acknowledgment of negative aspects of organizational culture. In its report: 3 Culture Conversations Every CEO Must Have With the Head of HR, Gartner encourages leaders to tackle this stigma and focus on giving employees a forum where they can confidently share their concerns.
