The talent race is also an ethical race
2020 was a bad year to be a worker. Laptops and cameras invaded our homes, whiteboard collaboration was replaced by Zoom glitches and Google Docs disarray, and any vestiges of work-life separation were blown away.
And that’s if you were one of the lucky ones. Millions were simply kicked out of jobs altogether, with Covid causing unprecedented drops in employment and hours worked. Further millions of essential workers had no choice but to continue working in unsafe environments. Thousands died.
After such a testing year, however, perhaps we’re turning a corner. The Economist, a newspaper hardly known for worker solidarity, predicts the arrival of a major power transfer. Through what I imagine are tightly clenched teeth, they describe an imminent swing, a ‘reversal of primacy of capital over labour’. If so, a golden age for workers beckons.
The theory goes that the post-Covid bounce will finally unleash employees’ pent-up frustrations. Eighteen months of working from the kitchen table has convinced many staff they’re done with meagre growth opportunities, stagnant pay, office politics, and – more than anything – the commute. Axios says 26% of employees plan to quit after Covid, while remote and hybrid work will untether the labour market from local employers, allowing people to reach for opportunities in other cities and countries. Talent flight may be a hallmark of the recovery as employees desert bad companies, and competition for top candidates becomes fiercer than ever.
For early signals of what happens when employees hold the cards, look at Big Tech. In-demand technologists are finally realising they hold enormous power. Their skills make them expensive and difficult to hire, and their mission-critical roles mean employees directly control a company’s output. Lift your hands off the keyboard and nothing gets built.
Tech workers are also starting to learn the trick to exploiting this power: collective action. An individual employee may be weak but, by banding together, employees can combine strengths while diluting risks.
This sort of mobilisation makes some executives nervous, in part because it looks like labour activism. Some worker-driven tech movements do focus on established labour issues like pay and conditions, and calls to unionise are gaining pace, thanks to the efforts of groups like the Tech Workers Coalition and industry leaders such as Ethan Marcotte.
But look closer at tech worker activism and you’ll see the primary focus is ethical. Google workers famously protested Project Maven – a Pentagon contract that could be used to aid drone strikes – on ethical grounds, expressing their displeasure through thousands of signatures on an an open letter and a handful of resignations. Shortly after Maven, the Google Walkout saw thousands of Googlers take part in brief wildcat strikes over allegations of sexual harassment at the company.
Other tech giants have since seen similar organisation. Amazon has faced internal employee rebellion over climate inaction and warehouse safety; Microsoft staff have come together to protest the company’s work with ICE.
So a swing toward worker power will also be an ethical transition. Salesforce found 79% of the US workforce would consider leaving an employer that demonstrates poor ethics, while 72% of staff want their companies to advocate for human rights. As opportunities start to open up for concerned workers, many will act on these beliefs and look for more moral employers.
Where Big Tech goes, the whole sector soon follows, and sure enough, ethical activism is a rising trend among tech workers worldwide. The #TechWontBuildIt movement typifies this emerging spirit of resistance, with thousands of technologists pledging to oppose and obstruct unethical projects.
This renewed ethical energy is here to stay and, with the eyes of regulators, press, and public alike now firmly on the tech sector, execs have to recognise the risks that await if they fumble the issue. Journalists have now realised compelling stories lurk inside the opaque tech giants and are eager for tales of dissent. Disharmony sells: if even pampered Silicon Valley types are unhappy, something is deeply amiss.
But the larger risk is around talent. Without outstanding and qualified employees you simply can’t compete – particularly in hot fields like data science and machine learning – but good candidates are increasingly dubious of Big Tech’s ethical credentials.
In firing AI ethicists Timnit Gebru and Meg Mitchell, Google leaders doubtless thought they’d found an opportunity to cut two demanding employees loose and proceed on mission. Instead, the company had blundered. The story made international headlines, and Google is now mired in allegations of retaliation. Gebru and Mitchell’s manager recently resigned amid the controversy, and Google’s reputation among data scientists and tech ethicists has been severely damaged. Canadian researcher Luke Stark turned down a $60,000 Google Research grant after the dismissals, and was only too happy to go on record to discuss his decision. Seems the ethics community’s solidarity is stronger than its ties to powerful employers and funders.
Facebook has also seen its candidate pool evaporating. Speaking to CNBC, several former Facebook recruiters reported the firm was struggling to close job offers. In 2016 around 90% of the offers Facebook to software engineering candidates made were accepted. By 2019, after Cambridge Analytica, allegations of cover-ups over electoral interference, and many other scandals, just 50% of the company’s offers were accepted.
Seeing their field as virtually a lifestyle, technologists know the industry intimately and recognize that toxic companies can blight a résumé. Many Uber employees who served during Travis Kalanick’s notorious reign found it difficult to land their next role; it seems hiring managers felt the company’s aggressive, regulation-dodging culture might undesirably infect their own teams.
So as companies stretch their limbs in preparation for the looming talent race, execs must remember this is also an ethical race. Tech workers are demanding that Silicon Valley look beyond disruption and hypergrowth and instead prioritise social impact, justice, and equity. As workers become more literate and confident in collective organising these calls will only get louder. Leaders may or may not agree with their employees’ demands, but the one thing they can’t do is ignore them. Money may still talk – but if the culture’s rotten, talent walks.
