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Yyoung people are used to being told they expect too much when it comes to the world of work. Judge Judy, Whoopi Goldberg and Jodie Foster were among the last of the elders who mocked them—blaming indulgent parents for setting them up to fail. Unmannered employers will not grant their pleas for better working hours, they said, or to join their favorite social causes, as young people seem to think.
But as Generation Z begins to make up a smaller portion of the workforce, a different story is emerging. The “unreasonable” demands of this generation are actually beginning to be met. Instead of giving young people a rude awakening, the corporate world is rolling over to accommodate them – after all, you can’t fire an entire generation.
A report c Financial Times charts the rise of Gen Z “whisperers”: advisors, including big consulting firms like Edelman, who help companies adapt to their young workforce and also ensure they appeal to younger customers. Managers feel particularly pressured these days to take a stand on social causes, according to the report.
Young worker activists aren’t the only force pushing companies in a more socially liberal direction. There are investor pressures from above and customer concerns from the outside. Shareholders are aware that the market reacts when companies take a position: firms that withdrawn from Russia as soon as he invaded Ukraine did better than those who made the decision only later, according to research from the Yale School of Management.
Meanwhile, consumers increasingly expect companies to speak up about social justice issues and are quick to condemn them for perceived failures. PwC 2022 Customer Loyalty Survey recorded that Gen X and millennial customers are more likely to support brands that express progressive beliefs. SP Global finds a positive correlation between business results and support for ESG – strategies that combine environmental, social and governance issues. ESG investment is predicted to grow rapidly.
“Awakened capitalism,” a term coined by writer Ross Dout, tends to be criticized from two directions. On the left, activists complain about the hypocrisy – that companies don’t always follow their so-called values. On the right, critics such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, who wrote about the problem in Telegraph last week argued that hiring people with diversity and spending money on environmental causes is bad for business. Both quibbles, however, miss the bigger story, which is that this change in corporate signaling tracks and demonstrates a massive social shift. Companies, if they want to sell things and attract employees, must conform to the values of their time. Ours are changing.
It might be easy to miss if you’re only focused on the tumultuous politics of Westminster and the last 14 years of Conservative government, but Britain, along with much of the Western world, is becoming increasingly liberal. It is not just the young, although they move the fastest: change is evident in every generation.
The gap we have crossed in the last 40 years is astonishing. In 1981, only 12% of Britons thought homosexuality was “justified”, according to recent study at King’s College London. Now two-thirds of us think so. This shift in opinion has happened mostly very recently: in 2009, only a third thought that being gay was acceptable. About half of the public thought same-sex relationships were “always wrong” in 1983; when the question was asked again two years ago, it was 9%.
What was once a pressing moral concern—divorce, casual sex, whether women with young children should go to work—has become a fact of life for most people. In 1999, only one in 10 Britons thought casual sex could be justified; in 2022, 42% did. Over the past 30 years, there has been a similar shift in abortion, which was once tolerated by only 14% and now by almost half. The survey of British social attitudes shows racism quickly declined, as well as prejudice against people with AIDS, along with support for the death penalty. 40 years ago, 75% of people thought that ironing in a heterosexual relationship was a woman’s job. This has fallen to 16%.
This is what really underpins “awakened capitalism.” Where we choose to work and what we buy reflects—perhaps more than any other measure—our social concerns. In 1880, when it was founded, Unilever’s goal was to “make cleanliness commonplace and reduce the burden on women.” Now it’s yes”make sustainable living commonplace“.
Political signals from big companies are nothing new. In 1969, shortly after the race riots in Detroit and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coca-Cola ran an ad called “boys on a bench”, a group of black and white teenagers sitting together. This is followed by “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”. known advertising promoting harmony between races. In the 1960s, some companies took positions against the Vietnam War, and others against apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s.
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Rees-Mogg, who worries about shareholder value, should also remember that firms tend to act in their own best interests. If a “woke” ad or company mission statement goes sour or turns out to reflect a small pressure group rather than the views of most people, it is often withdrawn.
Objectors on the left should also take heart. Their side wins. Where battles do arise, they are mostly over the speed of change rather than the direction itself. When the activist group Fossil Free Books was stuck over hers campaign to free Baillie Gifford of fossil fuels, critics did not dispute that the planet needed saving. Instead, they pointed out that the target was wrong and the strategy was bad: Bailey Gifford was already wide awake.
It is in quarrels like these that our policy as a country becomes clear. Values are not only recorded in ballot boxes.
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