Ethical Workplace & the Law in Practice - The Collective Voice: Employee Activism – Tuesday 11 May 2021

On Tuesday 11 May, we hosted our subsequent session in our series on The Collective Voice, whereby we were joined by an international panel of experts from a range of disciplines, chaired by Furat Ashraf (Senior Associate, International HR Services, London) to explore the key reasons behind this rise and consider how employers should react to increasing expectations from employees with respect to the role of corporations as advocates for social justice issues. We also explored the ways in which employers can mitigate the legal and reputational risks surrounding collective action and consider how employers can best respond to employee activism within their workforce.

Key questions addressed included:

• What are the reasons for the steady rise in employee activism in recent years?
• What role has social media played in this rise and how should employers approach the use of social media by their staff?
• How can employers best respond to the increasing call for corporate social activism and ethics in business?
• What is the best way to handle any misconduct issues that arise in this sphere?

We were joined by an international panel of experts from a range of disciplines, chaired by Furat Ashraf (Senior Associate, International HR Services, London). These panellists were Ros Hunt (Founder at Ros Hunt Consulting); Rebekah Metts-Childers (Partner at Brunswick Group and author of the Employee Activism: Accelerated Challenges and Opportunities white paper); Joel Davis (Director of HR, EMEA at Collins Aerospace) and Erin Tselenchuk, Co-Founder and Co-CEO for RISEQUITY, Inc.