Half way through 2019 with lots of exciting conferences and events filled with top executives from the best known companies, many of us will be listening to hear if any of them have ideas for fixing broken systems in employment; like bias hiring, discrimination and real compensation offers that was promised when the trillion dollars was given to corporations in last years Tax Plan.
Will we be hearing anything new or will we hear the same song and dance? Some CEO’s will say they are implementing technology that will help these issues. Some will say they are open to solutions and working with people.
Ever wonder what’s really gets done? When we give the label “thought leader” to folks who have senior or executive titles that makes us assume they have the some deep knowledge. Fact is many do not.
Ending December 2018, Global Employee Disengagement was at historic lows. Stats don’t lie and it tells us that some leaders are not cutting the mustard. But if corporate leadership can’t get anything done, who will fix the problems?
There is hope. Recently I read an article in Lexicon that “Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Help, Education, Labor, and Pensions – the committee with oversight of federal anti-discrimination law – has released recommendations for legislative action to combat unlawful workplace harassment.” Now is a good time to start doing something on the policy side. Seriously, the country’s wealth inequality has grown worse (fact) for decades and now Ageism is growing and affecting more than just senior people.
Senator Murray has used the #MeToo movement to set forth a series of recommendations to amend federal employment law, and more broadly to argue for legislative efforts to promote workplace “justice.”
Below are a few of the bullet points that are highlighted from the article:
- Employers should adopt and implement workforce harassment and discrimination policies based on best practices, and should train workers and supervisors on how to prevent and address harassment in the workplace (a practice in which most employers covered under federal or state anti-discrimination law are likely to already engage)
- Congress should expand anti-discrimination law to include all employers, no matter their size, and all workers, whether classified as “employees” or otherwise
- Congress should amend Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to expressly provide for protection of LGBTQ individuals
So, will we see policy go into effect soon? Government, like big companies, don’t move quick. But the fact that legislators are starting to wake up and make this part of their agenda tells me we as a society are moving in the right direction, there is hope.
For example, Age discrimination or Ageism is against U.S. Federal law – it has been for decades. Yet it runs rampant through our country. IT NOW EFFECTS MULTIPLE GENERATIONS INCLUDING MILLENNIAL’S! This tells me that there’s a lot of corporate executives who also are not doing their homework. I attend a lot of conferences. There has been growing talk that we are all hearing the same things, year after year, the same things I heard 15 years ago even.
And that’s where we’re at. So next time you’re out at a conference, ask whoever is speaking, what are they working on to fix real problems that matter for the betterment of their company and society. See if you can be genuinely impressed. The people in charge, both in Government and YES – in Corporate America have to create better. We need better leaders and we need to move away from status quo, because that isnt helping anyone, anywhere. For years I’ve been hearing the buzz of the candidate pools who are constantly on the move, that they feel leaders have no accountability. Here’s the bottom line, if corporations did the right things for their employees, there would be far less candidates on the market! Yet, talent acquisition has never been busier – and I say that year after year…after year.
The article I cited: http://bit.ly/2Hn7Enc
Photo by roya ann miller on Unsplash