Just Board Member Xavier de Souza Briggs and his colleagues at Brookings Institution released a major new report on generative AI, the American worker and the future of work this week, alongside a TIME guest essay on how the AI revolution is poised to affect workers in the least unionized industries. Amongst other things, they find that more than 30% of all workers could see at least half of their occupation’s tasks disrupted by generative AI, and that the disruptions will be felt across “cognitive” and “nonroutine” tasks, especially in middle- to higher-paid professions.
What can business leaders do to prepare? The authors identify several options including fostering worker engagement in AI design and implementation, and elevating worker voice in mitigating harms such as job loss and inequality. It’s a thorough, insightful study that will help anyone trying to make sense of this increasingly complex and worrying issue.
Also this week, The U.S. Department of Labor released its AI best practices roadmap for developers and employers seeking to safeguard worker well-being. The wide-ranging guidance covers everything from the development of more responsible AI standards and governance structures to ensuring meaningful human oversight for significant employment decisions. Investing in employee training on AI and increasing transparency with workers about the use of AI at work are also important principles. For examples of how 3 JUST 100 companies – Accenture, ServiceNow and T-Mobile – are putting these principles into practice, see below.
Clearly, the scaffolding around which a just approach to deploying AI in the workplace is now being constructed. What’s also important, as noted at the WSJ’s recent CIO Network Summit, is the ROI for AI in business. Leveraging LLMs to boost productivity, grow revenue, improve the employee experience, create higher quality jobs, better serve customers, reduce waste and environmental impact, and improve transparency – things that also constitute just business behavior – are coming into sharper focus too.
Be well,
Martin
This week marks the release of The Competitive Advantage of the Win-Win Workplace, a collaboration between Future Forward Strategies, The Burning Glass Institute, and JUST Capital. The report introduces 9 key strategies for aligning employee well-being with business success, and includes real-world case studies from companies like Intel and Cigna. Get all the insights here.
JUST Board Member Xavier de Souza Briggs and his colleagues at The Brookings Institute released a new report on generative AI, the American worker and the future of work, with a TIME guest essay on how the AI revolution is poised to affect workers in the least unionized industries.
As Martin noted above, here are three examples of AI and worker well-being coming together at JUST 100 companies.
Fortune takes a look at why ESG assets continue to grow in investment despite recent pushback against them.
The Conversation examines the underpaid, overworked workforce supporting the AI explosion: data labellers who must review everything fed into an AI system to correctly define the type of information.
The Washington Post reports that Boeing is planning to layoff nearly 17,000 jobs (10% of its workforce) after losing nearly $25 billion in the last few years thanks to ongoing security and safety concerns, legal battles, and union strikes. Competitor Airbus also announced plans to lay off 2,500 jobs in its defense and space division.
The Times reports that BP has abandoned its target date to cut oil production after falling significantly behind.
Axios highlights an interesting piece of research – at the very top, the gender pay gap flips, and women CEOs actually make more than men. However, this is likely a matter of small sample size as women represent just 40 CEOs in the analyzed index.
This chart comes from our review of Q3 Stakeholder Performance. Companies that lead in our Workers stakeholder delivered strong performance over this period (with a long-short spread of 1.17%). Year-to-date, our flagship JULCD index is outperforming its benchmark by 0.46% and the JUST 100 has significantly outperformed its benchmark by 7.38%. Explore the data here.
Moving the needle on corporate justness often requires a patient, deliberate, hands-on approach. This was evident recently, when the JUST team – in conjunction with the Gates Foundation and several partners – brought together 14 executives from big companies for a groundbreaking 4-day summit to advance workforce innovation and well-being.
Occasionally, though, external events compel companies to move swiftly to help their stakeholders, whether that means their employees, their customers, the communities they operate in, or society at large. Hurricane Helene is such an event.
It starts with financial support. Many companies we track – including Bank of America, Lockheed Martin, Wells Fargo, Truist, Target, and others – have made sizable donations to local charities, the American Red Cross, and other organizations to help provide essential needs and resources to those most affected.
Others also deploy their corporate capabilities. AirBnB, for example, is providing free temporary housing to displaced families. Amazon’s Disaster Relief and Response Team is leveraging the firm’s logistics, cloud computing and transportation assets to support organizations on the ground and to ensure critical help and supplies get to those in need. Walmart, Kroger, Home Depot, and Lowes, all of which have employees directly in harm’s way, are using their stores and warehouses as distribution centers for food, water, charging stations, generators, chainsaws, portable AC units, and more.
As the saying goes, crisis doesn’t create character, it reveals it. For many business leaders, Hurricane Helene has given them the chance to show what they’re made of.
Be well,
Martin
“I love trying to add purpose to the things I do because it gives me meaning. But I never advocate for people to insert purpose into their own businesses. It can end up as performative. A business can be a great social good on its own, and I don’t like adding gimmicky, fake missions. If you care about an issue, and you find a way to use market forces to channel that impact, it can do good. But often corporate communications departments are like, how do we add these as a feature? And it can be fake and doesn’t help.”
The Corporate Racial Equity Alliance, comprised of JUST Capital, PolicyLink, and FSG, have developed Business Standards for 21st Century Leadership to define business leadership that values people, planet, and the bottom line. Following our May 2024 release of draft standards 1-8, we have now released standards 9-14 for public feedback. The newly released draft standards focus on corporate impact on communities and society.
To lend your perspective on the topics of corporate impact on communities and society at large, please take our online survey by October 31. Stakeholder engagement in the development of these standards is key to our success. We hope you’ll join us and share your feedback.
It’s official: OpenAI is planning to become a for-profit business, causing several other executives to leave, and putting up more legal and logistical roadblocks. Mashable has the story. Meanwhile, Axios looks at some of the underlying causes of this shift.
Fortune reveals that shareholder proposals on diversity, pay equity, and plastic pollution got less support this season, but anti-ESG proposals also got less support. Learn more.
Board Member Peter Georgescu writes how, with a hollowing middle class, stakeholder capitalism is the best hope for a brighter future in his latest Forbes piece.
The Washington Post looks at the longshoreman strike, and the impact it could have on goods moving into the U.S.
The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the slow migration from salary-based pay to incentivized-bonus pay for many jobs, and how now, a majority of Americans work in positions where a chunk of their pay isn’t guaranteed.
Reuters examines the fallout that occurs when a Dollar Store closes in a low-income community.
If you can make it around the barricades, past the acronyms, and beyond the countless cocktails and canapes, you realize Climate Week in New York City provides an opportunity to address some serious questions.
Are we actually on track to combat climate change? Who’s moving the needle? Who is holding everyone to account? And who, ultimately, will foot the bill for whatever future we have in store?
There’s certainly a lot of capital flowing into the climate space. According to CREO Syndicate, a nonprofit organization on whose board I serve, “Annual global climate finance flows doubled from 2020 to 2022, reaching $1.4 trillion or 1% of global GDP, but will need to increase sixfold to average $8.6 trillion through 2030, and $10.7 trillion through 2050, to reach net zero.” Whether all of this investment will generate a market rate of return (or mitigate greenhouse gas emissions for that matter) remains to be seen, but compared to, say, a decade ago, these numbers are impressive.
There’s also a lot of business action on the issue. As our list of Top 10 Companies for the Environment shows, companies like Hewlett Packard Enterprise, McCormick and Co, Accenture, and Trane are supplying the world with advanced climate solutions that tie directly back to market performance and profitability. This week’s announcement by Microsoft (another JUST 100 leader) that it will use the Three Mile Island nuclear facility to supply the emissions-free power it needs to grow brings home how seriously companies are taking their climate commitments and how complex the path forward really is.
Where is the public – as consumers, as taxpayers, as voters – on all this? I’d say it’s a mixed bag. Despite what many of the international visitors I talked to this week think, Americans do care about the climate. But as our polling shows, it’s hard to prioritize it when you’re struggling to make ends meet. For millions around the world, a changing climate threatens their livelihoods, their communities, their futures. Yet many feel similarly threatened by some of the policies proposed to address the issue. Getting to grips with these realities is essential. In the meantime, it’s the private sector that will continue to lead.
Be well,
Martin
“We only have one environment and we must protect it. The planet will adapt without us – we are not as important as we think we are.”
California kicked-off climate week by launching the first-of-its-kind lawsuit against ExxonMobil for its alleged role in the plastic pollution crisis. The Guardian has the story.
Bloomberg takes a deep-dive into how corporations have lost or regained Americans’ trust, as part of an ongoing series on lack of faith in institutions.
Forbes predicts that average salary increases are going to decline next year. Explore why.
Fast Company explains why corporate America’s retreat from DEI is shortsighted, and Retail Dive highlights the leading DEI programs that serve business goals.
Bloomberg looks at the immense pay package garnered by ousted Nike CEO John Danahoe, and whether it was a just amount for a man who presided over the company losing over $40 billion in market value.
For climate week, we analyzed preliminary 2025 data on climate commitments, showing what level of disclosure and commitment Russell 1000 companies are providing, which will factor into our 2025 Rankings. So far, we are seeing a remarkable increase on SBTi scenario commitments compared to last year’s data.
Just Capital announces today the appointment of former PayPal CEO Dan Schulman as chairman of its board of directors.
Schulman replaces Just Capital Co-Founder Paul Tudor Jones II, who will remain on the board and continue to partner with Just Capital’s advisors and directors to realize its goal of becoming the most trusted and objective authority on ranking, recognizing, and incentivizing corporate stakeholder leadership.
“Paul Tudor Jones II’s vision when he co-founded JUST Capital ten years ago is an inspiration to us all,” said Dan Schulman. “Under his leadership, the organization has changed the conversation about how business in America is done. The role of JUST Capital is becoming ever more important in today’s world. I look forward to partnering with Paul and the rest of the board to help guide the kind of corporate leadership that the world so urgently needs.”
Schulman was the CEO of PayPal for more than nine years and previously held leadership roles at American Express, Sprint Nextel Corporation, Priceline Group, and AT&T. He is a board member of Verizon, Cisco, Lazard, and the Cleveland Clinic. He is vice chair of the Valor Capital Group, a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and co-chairs the World Economic Forum’s Steering Committee to promote global financial inclusion.
“Dan Schulman’s track record working at some of the largest U.S. companies makes him the perfect person to carry Just Capital forward as chairman,” said Paul Tudor Jones II. “I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve achieved and look forward to working alongside Dan and the entire JUST Capital team to drive change at scale and better the lives of all Americans in doing so.”
Over the past 10 years, Just Capital has amplified the voices of more than 180,000 Americans and incentivized hundreds of the largest U.S. companies to take concrete actions that benefit millions of workers, families, and communities. With partners like CNBC and Forbes, the organization has built the Just Capital Rankings into a sought-after designation that improves brand value and has launched investable indices that demonstrate the clear case for stakeholder-driven business. As of August 30, 2024, Just Capital’s flagship indexes, the JUST 100 Index (JUONETR) and Just U.S. Large Cap Diversified Index (JULCD), have outperformed their benchmarks by 51% and 12.9%, respectively, since inception.
“As stakeholder metrics become more relevant in C-suites and boardrooms, Just Capital is delighted to work hand-in-hand with Dan Schulman to hone our strategy to directly support leaders in managing risk, measuring and improving performance, and creating impact at scale,” said CEO Martin Whittaker. “When many are questioning the merits of capitalism and faith in the American Dream is being tested, our vision is clear. We know that just business is better business.”
In a slowing job market and signs of rising unemployment, understanding how companies invest in their workforce has never been more critical. Workers are increasingly asking for meaningful employee benefits and are vocal about their needs for better support, whether it’s for financial wellbeing and the ability to cover their living costs, assistance with caregiving responsibilities, or clear paths for career progression.
JUST Capital’s polling continuously shows how consistent Americans are when it comes to what they want the nation’s largest public companies to prioritize – their workers. Year over year, worker issues including living wage, benefits, career development, worker health and safety, and diversity and inclusion get the highest prioritization and in 2024 comprise 42% of a company’s score in our Rankings of America’s Most JUST Companies.
Investing in workers was a recurring theme in JUST Capital focus groups that will inform the 2025 Rankings. Full findings will be published later this year. Related to how companies can create value for all their stakeholders, one participant shared:
“I feel like a happy employee makes a happy company.” – Male, 40-44, Moderate
And in fact, JUST Capital’s research shows exactly that: investing in workers pays off. Our Workers Leaders Index Concept – which tracks the top 20% of companies in our Rankings that perform best across all five worker-related issues – has outperformed the Russell 1000 Equal Weighted index by 16.46% from December 31, 2021 to July 31, 2024.
As we approach Labor Day, JUST Capital is highlighting the companies leading the way in fostering environments where workers feel valued, supported, and empowered to thrive by actively implementing comprehensive workplace policies that address their workers’ needs head-on. Our analysis found that the top 10 companies for worker issues are outpacing the rest of the Russell 1000 in a number of ways:
JUST Capital is proud to present the list below of Top 10 Companies for Workers with details on how they are leading on the issues that matter most to the American public. The following list is based on performance on Worker Issues from JUST Capital’s 2024 Rankings of America’s Most JUST Companies.
Ranked 2nd in Overall Rankings and 1st for Banks
Bank based in Charlotte, North Carolina
Bank of America invests in its employees’ financial and physical well-being by focusing on competitive wages and comprehensive benefits. The company demonstrates a commitment to paying living wages, with a minimum hourly wage of $23 – one of the highest disclosed among the Top 10 Companies for Workers and well above both the Russell 1000 average of $16.73 and the bank industry average of $18.22. In its commitment to supporting working families, Bank of America offers 16 weeks of paid leave for both primary and secondary caregivers and provides emergency backup care and subsidies for routine day care services. In addition, Bank of America embraces transparency on topics like pay equity and workforce demographics: it’s among the 12.5% of companies that publicly report the results of both their gender and race/ethnicity pay equity analyses and part of the 47% who disclose highly disaggregated workforce demographic data.
Ranked 5th in Overall Rankings and 2nd for Banks
Bank based in New York, New York
Citi demonstrates a strong commitment to fairness and family support through a range of initiatives focused on equity and employee-wellbeing. The company’s dedication to equity is reflected in its pay analysis results, which show that women globally earn over 99% of what men earn. Citi also provides highly disaggregated workforce demographic data by gender, race/ethnicity, and standardized job categories, underscoring its transparency and commitment to an inclusive environment. Supporting its workforce further, Citi offers up to 16 weeks of paid leave to primary caregivers and benefits like preferred access and up to 10% tuition discounts at Bright Horizons child care centers, along with emergency backup dependent care. The company also invests in professional development, providing an average of 38 training hours per employee and offering tuition reimbursement to support employees’ continuous learning.
Ranked 18th in Overall Rankings and 4th for Semiconductors & Equipment
Semiconductors & Equipment company based in Santa Clara, California
NVIDIA’s approach to fostering an equitable and supportive work environment is evident in its commitment to both pay equity and comprehensive employee benefits. Notably, the company offers robust parental leave benefits, including 22 weeks of fully paid leave for birth parents, 12 weeks of paid leave for non-birth parents, including fathers and adoptive parents, and support in offsetting childcare costs by providing a 10% discount on childcare at KinderCare centers. Additionally, NVIDIA stands out for its robust pay equity disclosure, as it is one of only 12.5% of companies overall and 23.5% among industry peers to disclose both their gender and race/ethnicity adjusted pay ratios. The company is also one of very few among the Russell 1000 companies we assess to disclose disaggregated pay equity data by different race/ethnicity categories, showcasing a high level of transparency.
Ranked 16th in Overall Rankings and 4th for Banks
Bank based in New York, New York
JPMorgan Chase invests in its employees’ financial well-being by offering a minimum hourly wage of $20, which exceeds the Russell 1000 average and represents the third highest minimum wage among banks. The company also supports new parents with 16 weeks of paid parental leave for both primary and secondary caregivers and families with various caregiving services. JPMorgan Chase’s equity practices are also reflected in its pay gap analysis results, which show nearly equal compensation across gender and racial lines. Additionally, the company maintains transparency in its diversity efforts by disclosing detailed demographic data by gender, race/ethnicity, and job category.
Ranked 6th in Overall Rankings and 1st for Health Care Providers
Health Care Provider based in Bloomfield, Connecticut
Cigna demonstrates its commitment to workplace equity through pay equity analysis, showing near-parity in compensation for female and underrepresented minority employees. The company also prioritizes transparency by sharing highly detailed workforce demographic data by gender, race/ethnicity, and job category, reinforcing its focus on fostering an inclusive environment. Additionally, Cigna supports its employees’ work-life balance with key benefits including 18 days of paid time off and seven days of paid sick leave annually, paid parental leave, flexible scheduling opportunities, and emergency backup dependent care support.
Ranked 51st in Overall Rankings and 6th for Software
Software company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Dayforce sets a high standard in the Software industry with its generous and inclusive parental leave policy, offering 17 weeks of paid leave to all caregivers. This is the highest offering at parity among the Top 10 companies and far surpasses the Russell 1000 average of 11 and 8 weeks of paid parental leave for primary and secondary caregivers, respectively. Additionally, Dayforce invests in its employees by providing unlimited paid time off, 10 days of paid sick leave annually, and both backup and subsidized dependent care benefits. Flexible scheduling opportunities further reflect Dayforce’s dedication to fostering a work environment that truly supports its employees’ diverse needs.
Ranked 90th in Overall Rankings and 1st for Consumer & Diversified Finance
Consumer & Diversified Finance company based in Detroit, Michigan
Ally Financial is among the Top 10 companies with the highest minimum wage of $23 per hour. This wage exceeds the Russell 1000 average of $16.73 and the Consumer & Diversified Finance industry average of $19.00, demonstrating a sustained commitment to competitive compensation for hourly employees. The company also supports working parents by offering equal parental leave to both primary and secondary caregivers and providing discounts on childcare to help ease caregiving costs. This combination of competitive wages and comprehensive family support underscores the company’s ongoing investment in its employees’ well-being and stability.
Ranked 9th in Overall Rankings and 2nd for Semiconductors & Equipment
Semiconductors & Equipment company based in Santa Clara, California
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) demonstrates a strong commitment to employee well-being through a comprehensive range of benefits, supporting their work-life balance and professional development. AMD offers 12 weeks of fully-paid parental leave for the birth, adoption, or foster placement of a child, ensuring equitable support for all parents and new families alike. Also, the company provides up to 20 days of subsidized backup care annually to help employees with their caregiving expenses. In addition to its family-friendly policies, AMD supports employees’ work-life balance with a minimum of 15 days of paid time off, 20 days of paid sick and family time off, and workplace flexibility, enabling employees to choose what best fits their needs. AMD also supports employees’ professional development and encourages continuous learning through its education assistance program which offsets the cost of education.
Ranked 10th in Overall Rankings and 3rd for Semiconductors & Equipment
Semiconductors & Equipment company based in Boise, Idaho
Micron offers a range of robust benefits to support its employees, including 12 weeks of fully-paid parental leave for all expectant parents and at least 17 days of paid time off annually for rest and recovery. Additionally, the company supports career development and skill enhancement through its academic advancement program which provides financial assistance and resources for employees to pursue higher education and professional certifications. What’s more, Micron provides an average of 62 hours of career training per team member annually, significantly exceeding the industry average of 21 hours. Micron also performs regular pay equity analyses to foster a culture of fairness, ensuring sustained pay equity globally for women and people with disabilities, as well as across race/ethnicity and veteran status in the U.S.
Ranked 26th in Overall Rankings and 2nd for Transaction Processing
Transaction Processing company based in San Jose, California
Paypal demonstrates a strong commitment to employee support through its equitable compensation practices, robust professional development opportunities, and comprehensive benefits package. The company regularly conducts pay equity analyses by gender and race/ethnicity, and its latest assessment reveals that it has maintained 100% global gender and U.S. ethnic pay equity, reflecting its ongoing commitment to fairness and inclusivity. In addition to its focus on equitable compensation, PayPal supports employees’ professional development by offering tuition reimbursement to help cover educational costs and an average of 48 hours of training per employee annually, which is 2.4 times more than the industry average. The company also provides a comprehensive benefits package which includes unlimited paid time off, five days of paid sick leave, equal paid parental leave for all parents, and both subsidized and backup dependent care. To further promote work-life balance, Paypal also offers flexible working arrangements like hybrid work to accommodate diverse needs.
To learn more about our methodology, unpack your company’s performance on worker issues in the 2024 Rankings, and gain insights into how to improve on the issues that matter most to the American public, please reach out to corpengage@justcapital.com.
A major survey on Global CEO Confidence released by EY last week provides some fascinating insights into the way corporate leaders around the world view the competitive and economic landscape right now.
Cautious optimism is one way to summarize it. CEOs are “rethinking, reimagining and reshaping their companies” to be fit for a highly unpredictable future. They place great importance on being data-driven, on resilience, on understanding how the drivers of total shareholder return are shifting. They know that “capitalizing on disruption” – whether by AI, other emerging technologies, shifting societal values, geopolitical risk or otherwise – will be crucial to long- and short-term value creation.
Such confidence is critical for a stakeholder mentality to take root. And as the FT’s Gillian Tett noted in her opinion piece last week, “[Milton] Friedman’s shareholder-first mantra went hand in hand with an assumption that the issues that really mattered for companies were those recorded on their balance sheets.” Clearly, this is no longer the case. The biggest risks to shareholder value today often arise from social, environmental, governance, and political sources.
I like to think that through JUST’s polling, data, insights and rankings we can help companies understand and navigate this increasingly complex landscape of stakeholder expectations. A critical phase of this – ensuring we’ve captured the latest policies and practices from the companies we rank – kicks off September 17th with the opening of our annual Data Review Period. Companies can register to participate here. By building CEO confidence in planning, strategy and decision making on stakeholder performance, we can help equip them to deal with whatever lies ahead.
Be well,
Martin
“In addition to thinking about the return we need to have for our shareholders and the sustainability that this provides to the business, that can also be really complemented by taking care of our employees who make those products possible and the communities where we work and live. How can we make sure that like they’ve helped us along the way, we’re giving back to them.”
JPMorgan Chase
JPMorgan Chase offers a minimum hourly wage of $20, which exceeds the Russell 1000 average and represents the third highest minimum wage among banks. The company also supports new parents with 16 weeks of paid parental leave for both primary and secondary caregivers and families with various caregiving services.
Cigna
Cigna prioritizes transparency by sharing highly detailed workforce demographic data by gender, race/ethnicity, and job category, reinforcing its focus on fostering an inclusive environment. Additionally, Cigna supports its employees’ work-life balance with key benefits including 18 days of paid time off and seven days of paid sick leave annually, paid parental leave, flexible scheduling opportunities, and emergency backup dependent care support.
Dayforce
Dayforce sets a high standard in the Software industry with its generous and inclusive parental leave policy, offering 17 weeks of paid leave to all caregivers. This is the highest offering at parity among the Top 10 companies and far surpasses the Russell 1000 average of 11 and 8 weeks of paid parental leave for primary and secondary caregivers, respectively.
Read about more leading policies here.
Bank of America, 2023’s Most JUST Company (and #1 for Workers in 2024) is once again raising wages – bringing its minimum wage to $24 an hour, with a plan to hit $25 in 2025. Axios dives into the details.
In other news on wages, the U.S Construction industry dropped to its lowest level of unemployment ever recorded, with wages up across the board. CB has the full story.
However, MSN counters this news by reporting on the 15 cities that are no longer viable for minimum wage workers due to rising cost of living.
NPR chronicles one Wisconsin CEO’s journey to create viable child care options for his 900 employees, and the hurdles the company faced.
This chart comes from Axios’ latest newsletter, and shows that for the first time in 4 years, the median U.S. income has actually gone up. Learn more inside.
