You are part of a productive team at a growing tech company. You been asked by your supervisor to provide your thoughts on the following situation.
The company wants to understand the issues surrounding employee activism and is gathering perspectives and information. Your supervisor has identified you to participate by providing a 2- page memo that reviews the emergence of employee activism in the tech world and provides recommendations for the company.
Engineers and other employees at companies like Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook have organized and raised concerns about these company’s use of its technologies, contracts and overall policies. What are the best strategies for a company to both support the societal concerns of its workforce while at the same time, pursuing business opportunities? Do your best to avoid generic thoughts when exploring this tension. Note: you are not writing to either advocate or criticize this trend. Rather you are an observer, providing relevant description and recommendations.
Specifications
Write a 750-850 word memo. Aim for around 2 pages, single-spaced, block paragraphs with headings. Here’s a suggested structure for your memo:
Brief description of high-tech employee activism
Middle paragraphs should cover your analysis supported by specific discussion of employee activism and its potential. Read through the articles (from the Economist and the MIT Sloan Management Review) found in the attachment to familiarize yourself with this issue and then find your own source material so you can provide thoughtful discussion.
In your final paragraph provide brief recommendations. What does your company need to understand about this trend? How best can they support open discussion between employees and executives about their tech developments and clients?
Citations and Source Material
For credibility you need solid source material that is properly referenced (at least 2 standard publications that are not the articles in the attachments and were published in 2021 or later. Use articles from Google Scholar and dated after 2021. If you need help evaluating the appropriateness of your sources, see evaluating sources.
Citations should be included in the paper and listed at the end in a bibliography. Additionally, please provide the links to the materials you have cited. You may use any standard system for citing material: APA, MLA, IEEE, etc. Look up one of these formats online to see the standard forms for citing your reference material.
