What’s good for the company is good for the individual

This week some firms have offered to pay for London staff to commute by taxi. Really?

“What’s good for the company is good for the individual, not the other way around”

I use this phrase often with business leaders, though the context is vital, as we can look at this as being a negative or, with a different context, as a major positive for employees, clients/customers, even society as a whole.

Let me share some glaring negative use of this from the last week as some employers push for their employees to come back to work “voluntarily”, then I’ll look at this phrase through the positive lens of #OpenLeadership.

“What’s good for the company..” (with little consideration for others)

Blackstone and Advent pay for Covid-19 tests and taxis to bring staff back to work

Headline from the FT, 7 Sep 2020

Fund Manager Blackstone, with key offices in New York and London, though considering it to be “voluntary” (use of quotes are mine), clearly wants staff to come back to the office as they value face to face connection.

I absolutely agree that face to face connection is important, hence I am propagating the term #WFA (work from anywhere) as a context for employers to consider, to look at the needs of their business, their employees, their customers, then to look at a hybrid model that is neither…