Katherine Ann Byam MBA, FCCA, is a Business Resilience Coach and strategic partner to leaders on sustainability, leadership and digital transformation for marketing and operations.
This episode of the podcast covers Sustainable goal #8 Decent Work and Economic growth, a common thread of the podcast.
Katherine examines:
• Equality vs Equity
• Brewed Indecency
• The International Labour Organisations take on Decency
• And contracts that favour the larger of 2 entities
Katherine Ann Byam 0:01
Equality versus equity, I'm about to head off on vacation. But a few things have happened in the last weeks that have prompted me to record one more podcast before I take off to the coast of Cornwall without any access to my phone or my apps.
I'm really looking forward to this. But before I come to the many topics I want to discuss, I feel the need to bring us all on the same page on equality versus equity. There's a super popular meme that shows a father, a teenager and a toddler, looking at a game over a fence equality is represented by each having the same size of box to stand on. Yet the toddler still can't see the match.
Equity is represented by each having the size of crate or box relevant to enabling them the same experience. Now in another meme, they show a third option of this equation, which is capitalism where the fence is raised so that neither of them can see and so that they pay to have a seat in the stands. And yet another meme, there's a fence instead of a wall, where everyone can see through it. And this is labelled justice.
Now the point I really want to make here is that everyone you knew and everyone I knew once for basic things, respect, reassurance, recognition, and a sense of responsibility. When we act out of integrity, or out of alignment with any of these things, well, we are brewing in decency.
So speaking of brews, let's talk about BrewDog. For a moment, I've been following and watching James Watt for more than a year. And I've used his presence, his branding his public relations on LinkedIn, as an example for many of my clients, and how to show up consistently with a message that everyone resonates with. The company has supported the NHS, they've pledged to be carbon neutral, and from the outside, they're punching way above their weight and the impact that they are creating or have created on LinkedIn.
There's no reason to believe from the open letter that good and positive things haven't been achieved at the company. But at what cost and are these costs justified? Before we assess the cost, I want to look at what decent work means in reference to goal number eight of the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Now there are four overarching ideas that we can bite our teeth into.
These are dignity, equality, fair income, and safe working conditions. Those four ideas are backed by three fundamental principles rights, inclusivity, and protection. Now, decent work is a key thread in this podcast and the work I do in sustainability consulting. So in both in treat, and invested in what is unfolding in this story, all of the principles, tenets and ideas here are subjective measures that leave a lot of room for GRI. The UN, for example, mentions equality and non equity.
So we can even poke holes in the concept of itself. But all of floored by our inability to measure them. So no matter what words we choose, we still have a problem of measurement. The only reasonable way to measure if dignity exists, if fair wages exist, if respect exists, or even recognition exist, or any of the other examples is to have full transparency.
This means all the data being available, so everyone can interrogate it, we can all do the comparison, and we can all assess whether this exists. And then we need to be able to severe everyone on their perceptions of whether or not these conditions are being met. Transparency, unfortunately, remains an occlusion. Now let's get back to BrewDog. We have largely lost connection with the original founders of large companies in FMCG industries.
And it's perhaps easier to treat the company as the external presence that works to its own culture and rhythm that we don't assess, you know, largely I have lived and experienced my career as believing in this idea of a company in a culture that I could believe in. And I know many of us do.
But this idea of a company isn't real, it is all created, it is all perceived, and it is created by the people who found it and who run it. When a business is found to run. There's much more tied up in the public perception and the perception of the founder personally. This is usually inextricably linked from the company. What the open letter refers to as the cult of personality is therefore unsurprising.
All the way didn't speak to its veracity I've never worked there. But what the employees have described is not an experience uncommon to employees in many companies, if you read Glassdoor reviews, but when you build your brand on a foundation, you have to make sure that that foundation is well embedded. Public Relations starts with who, why, what? And the stories behind the founders and the founding story of the brand. A good publicist understands what the business owner wants to create and where it comes from. From this perspective, I consider the BrewDog public relations team to be exemplary. What appears to be missing is an alignment between the vision and the actual reality.
But as James rightly said, my fault he takes responsibility for the culture of the company. I also have tremendous respect for this paragraph where he says in his response, it's hard to hear those comments, but it must have been harder to see them. We appreciate that. And we will endeavour to honour that effort and courage with a real change of deserves. We aren't going to make excuses. We're going to take action. From our commitment to sustainability to a passion for bear BrewDog has always been defined by taking responsibility and continually improving, this is no exception.
Now it took a bit of a public bollocking and rolling over the coals as they say, to acknowledge a need to listen and to change. But we do have to celebrate this outcome for people who are working toward decent work in the world. I really want to congratulate the punks with Cooper's organisation for what they've done not just for BrewDog employees, but for employees everywhere, who need the courage to say enough is enough. And I'm going to take a stand.
So many employees around the world and indeed the UK are not free to speak their minds and have become slaves to their golden handcuffs and their lack of belief that they can start a new career or give up some of the comforts they have come to enjoy, because of indignities that they have suffered. To James what I see that we are all watching.
We are also rooting for you to set an even greater example than you've done with your public relations to what you will now do to transform your organization's internal culture so that the values of decency tribe shine right true. Beyond James and the BrewDog. travesty, the International Labour Organisation explains the challenges we face globally on the decent work front employment growth since 2008, has averaged only 0.1% annually compared with 0.9%.
Between 2002 1007 Over 60% of all workers like any kind of employment contract, fewer than 45% of wage and salaried workers are employed on a full time permanent basis. And even that share is declining. By 2019, more than 212 million people will be out of work up from the current 201 million and 600 million new jobs need to be created by 2030. Chess to keep pace with the growth of the working age population. Now, these stats are a bit dated, but they're still relevant.
So what do we do? Well, many of us start businesses and season three of this podcast is going to be all about building a business from the ground up going from idea to see you. But starting businesses is also not the full answer because the exam question is much bigger than this. How do we balance what we need for the well being of people, plants, pets and other organisms on the planet in such a way that we achieve a sense of belonging, of contribution of personal and vocational growth, and of economic growth, because we all perceive this as a necessary thing.
We can debate this. Now this is the challenge that we face in levelling up those who are not having a decent quality of life, and those who have more than what they need. Now, before I close, I want to speak about something closer to home for me. A few weeks back, a small but still significant consultancy, started discussions with me to join them as an associate on their team. You know, initial conversations, the CEO of the company joked, let's sign the contract and put it in a dark place never to be looked at again.
Contracts are complicated little beasts, and they are generally not needed in good times. It's when times get bad that they become the first thing anyone reaches for. To suggest, therefore, that a contract is something that could sit in a dark place never to be looked at again, is a mark of professional disrespect. And as such, I was pretty sure I knew how this relationship would turn out.
As I could already tell we had different values. I received a 35 page contractual document assigned from this company stipulating our rights. Yet none of these terms favoured me or acknowledged the unique skills I honed on my own before encountering this company skills that they do not currently have. Still unlikely The previous time I received the contract of this nature, I decided not to simply throw the contract in the Delete bin along with the relationship. But instead I chose transparency.
And there's that word again, I chose to disclose what I would be doing with this document, before I considered signing it. I advised this guy, that there were a few clauses that were not satisfactory to me, and that I'd have my lawyer check it because I didn't want to misspeak. I received no response from that meal. My lawyers no spring chicken, it took her 30 minutes to hone in and respond to the red flags in the contract.
She told me the following. I have reviewed the agreement and do find that more one sided than normal, and answer to your question, there is no guarantee of any work or even if the rate of PII, they reserve the right to reduce the fee from the scheduled periods if they have a business need or a given a client volume discount or a bulk discount, and you have to wait over a month for payment. You're giving up the intellectual property in what you work on, and provide for them, and you be restrictions, you have to give them longer notice when they gave you and you were bearing the risk and liability if something goes wrong.
I asked the owner about his willingness to negotiate and that my lawyer would like to mock up some revisions on a Word version of the contract. And his response was this, I have reflected on our exchanges and your request to edit our contract and negotiate in quotations on its tunes. I think it best if we pause our relationship for now, my sense is that you expect a far more formal relationship than we are used to. We have never operated like this in over 20 years. And it does not feel right to start a relationship on such a formal footing. Now,
I wish you the very best of luck in your endeavours and perhaps we can pick up a discussion at another time. Dude, I will tell you this, without an apology for your disrespect, there will be no other time. Many people signed contracts like these because they are scared of not being able to take care of their family of not getting another opportunity elsewhere, of not being able to show up the way they need to. And to get the great opportunities that are perhaps just a stretch away. I am not that person. The first thing in any relationship for me is whether or not my fundamental core values can be upheld in that relationship.
My fundamental core values are rooted in freedom, equity and decency. When these are not present, no feasible working relationship as possible. It's that simple. If you want to make changes, you need to be prepared to speak up and say what's not right with the world around you. Even if it excludes you from that will by default. We don't get to inclusion, by not expressing an opinion that is not inclusion, that is a false sense of let's all go go along with the stream. Alright, so I think I have covered the full spectrum of things related to decent work. If you have any queries on this topic, do feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.
I'm always open to connections and conversations. If you've enjoyed this podcast over the past nine months and the last two seasons, do let us know by giving us a rating, reviewing and commenting on the stories that have meant something to you and share with us anyone you believe would be a good fit for the show, and whose views you would like to be represented on the show. One challenge I faced in finding guests is the diversity of the lineup. But I am proud that there is a broad international representation on the show. I urge you to participate connect with me, as I mentioned on LinkedIn, start a conversation because who knows where that conversation may lead. Thank you for listening to these past two seasons.
And we're coming in just two weeks with a full season three of the show. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for listening. This podcast was brought to you today by career sketching with Katherine Ann Byam and the space where ideas launch. Career sketching is a leadership development and coaching brand offering personalised career transition and transformation services. This space where ideas launch offers high performance, leadership coaching and strategy facilitation to businesses in the food and health sectors. To find out more contact Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn