Activist Insight's "IN-DEPTH: Employee feedback" addresses the uptick in "employees as activists" vis-à-vis their own employers.
The article recounts the increasing incidence of employees using their company stock to advocate for change on E&S issues (such as climate change and D&I), as well as on issues pertaining to corporate strategy and executive compensation, via the shareholder proposal process - in some cases with assistance from so-called "experienced governance campaigners." Google employees, for example, collaborated this year and last year with socially responsible (activist) investor Zevin Asset Management on D&I/executive compensation alignment proposals (reported on here).
The article suggests that companies that implement formal employee feedback channels and walk the talk on issues of concern and importance to employees in ways that are transparent and illustrate authenticity and accountability will mitigate the potential for adversarial employee activity in the form of shareholder activism or otherwise.
See also these articles: "Amazon Employees Try a New Form of Activism, as Shareholders" (WIRED) and "Amazon employees rarely speak out publicly against their company. But 3,500 just did" (Recode). This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!