I saw this firsthand in May/June in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing. It was a pretty small company and there was one employee in particular who was very much an activist, though a number of employees of course felt very strongly about what was going on. The company genuinely tried to do their best to support them, encouraged this person to take a week off for mental health and from my perspective was making a real effort to be understanding and support this person and also to express support for the BLM movement as a whole.
There was one manager in particular who really tried to do the right thing in supporting this employee. The manager convinced the marketing folks to make a pro-BLM post on LinkedIn, but then this employee got upset that it had not gone far enough and was too weakly worded. A good friend of the employee and former coworker at this company actually called out the company in the comments of the post on LinkedIn for not taking a stronger stand. The manager also convinced the executives to have the company donate money, and this kicked off a broader giving back initiative where they wanted everyone to vote on causes that the company could support in various ways. This caused even more backlash, because it had now lost site of the BLM focus and become a broader thing.
By the end, the company was just cluelessly walking on eggshells with no idea how to not make things worse in their attempts at support. The employee was extremely frustrated, struggled to regain any level of respect for the company and stopped really performing in their job and ended up leaving a couple months later. I still very much believe nobody was in the wrong here, nobody involved was a bad person or even an insensitive person. It just proved to be very difficult to navigate this situation, there were too many ways for it to go wrong and the company didn't handle everything absolutely perfectly and so they just made things worse.
Anyway, in the end I'm very convinced that everyone, including the activist employee, would have been much happier under the model as stated by Coinbase. And even if this person left or had never joined this company to begin with because of that policy, the result would have been very similar in the end, but without the weeks of frustration and stress and lost productivity all around.
> I still very much believe nobody was in the wrong here
This just doesn't strike me as reasonable. The employee was in the wrong. Clearly. Just because the thing you support is a moral and good thing to support doesn't mean you get to foist your activism upon everyone else around you. I care about endangered species conservation - but if I did what this person did and held the organization hostage to my demands I'd be looked at sideways, and rightfully so.
It's not that there's no place for activism in the workplace, it's just that the line should be drawn at the point where it starts harming the organization as a whole.
My process of engaging at work is strictly professional. I don't even like going to happy hours. I don't want to bond with anyone on a personal level. Ok, we joke and entertain ourselves on a personal level but it is very much small talk / elevator chat.
I honestly do not understand why people socialize at work. Can someone who holds a contrary viewpoint shed some light on why this is so common place in corporate environments? My guess is that it has to do with various kinds of personalities.
I spend a lot of time working. I'm not a machine; having meaningful conversations with my coworkers makes me feel human. Especially during the pandemic, when I have even less social contact than I already did.
I also just happen to share similar interests/perspectives with my boss, and we trust each other a lot. I count him as a friend instead of just a coworker.
I only talk politics obliquely, and tend towards analysis and hearing what people have to say. I try to come off as friendly and tolerant of other perspectives, and my conservative coworkers tend to return the favor.
This very same thing happened at the non-profit where my wife works.
They released a statement. Kind of a milquetoast, bland statement, but still unambiguously supportive of BLM.
But not supportive enough for some employees, particularly those of color. Lots of complaints, and a lot of non-racial issues started boiling up to the fore as well. They've since amended and re-released the statement to be stronger, and included statements for battered women, Native Americans, and a full-on separate statement for at-risk immigrants.
It's utterly paralyzed the organization -- and is totally unrelated to their primary mission -- and will likely lead to at least one lawsuit. It sounds like a manager or two may be a rebuke or termination as well.
I ultimately agree with the parent and OP -- create a safety valve or squash the discussion, because there is no way to function as an org if you're 10 minutes from screaming at, or stabbing, or suing your coworkers
I can sort of understand that at a non-profit, but a company is a company (even if I think a world where crypto is normal would be a much better world).
If the employee was finding ways to get upset at everything, it’s not unbelievable that they’d find a way to get upset about being given a bonus with their severance. The first thing to pop in my mind is: “they’re paying me because they don’t care and want me to shut up!” Not saying that they would’ve, but I could see it happening based on how you’ve described it.
There was one manager in particular who really tried to do the right thing in supporting this employee. The manager convinced the marketing folks to make a pro-BLM post on LinkedIn, but then this employee got upset that it had not gone far enough and was too weakly worded. A good friend of the employee and former coworker at this company actually called out the company in the comments of the post on LinkedIn for not taking a stronger stand. The manager also convinced the executives to have the company donate money, and this kicked off a broader giving back initiative where they wanted everyone to vote on causes that the company could support in various ways. This caused even more backlash, because it had now lost site of the BLM focus and become a broader thing.
By the end, the company was just cluelessly walking on eggshells with no idea how to not make things worse in their attempts at support. The employee was extremely frustrated, struggled to regain any level of respect for the company and stopped really performing in their job and ended up leaving a couple months later. I still very much believe nobody was in the wrong here, nobody involved was a bad person or even an insensitive person. It just proved to be very difficult to navigate this situation, there were too many ways for it to go wrong and the company didn't handle everything absolutely perfectly and so they just made things worse.
Anyway, in the end I'm very convinced that everyone, including the activist employee, would have been much happier under the model as stated by Coinbase. And even if this person left or had never joined this company to begin with because of that policy, the result would have been very similar in the end, but without the weeks of frustration and stress and lost productivity all around.