Why Your Business Should Lead On Social Change

Businesses should lead social change to raise the socioeconomic status of employees and foster long-term economic growth for the U.S. economy and their business. How? Within the control of every single business leader, companies should offer extraordinary employee pay and benefits that facilitate the upward mobility of employees. Employees should be paid as owners with a stake in the financial performance of the business. Companies should fund continuing education such as certificate and degreed programs to boost employee skills and education. Businesses should offer or help communities build solutions for childcare and eldercare that often limit or preclude employee participation in the workforce. All of these efforts at the company level can be addressed cost-effectively and can be offered while generating very handsome profits. I know because I do it.

But more broadly, business leaders should demand and support compromise among our government leaders and agencies to develop clear, very long-term social and economic policies for energy, climate, transportation, infrastructure, technology, education, immigration, medical care, mental health, women’s reproductive rights, and social safety net programs. Clear long-term policies and coordination between federal, state and local authorities, even without government investment, would increase confidence among the private sector and dramatically accelerate our economic expansion. Aggressive and clear policies, investment and coordination among federal, state and local authorities would reward all U.S. citizens with upward economic mobility. Business leaders need to help authorities reach compromise to establish these policies.

Free enterprise can and should play a critical role in leading societal change. Our entire society was founded on principles of freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of beliefs, freedom of choice, etc. A leader’s or an employee’s individual social beliefs are not relevant to the business overall — keep them to yourself and don’t impose your beliefs on others. Our workplaces should embody a microcosm of society and this same abundance of freedom for all employees.

Workplaces should reflect society as a whole and lead social change.