Like the US president, work culture is changing

Hello from London. I’m Emma Jacobs and I write on work and careers for the Financial Times.

On Monday, I did something I rarely do. I turned on the 📺 while working from the sofa (I know, I know, I’m living up to former M&S boss Stuart Rose’s characterisation of homeworkers as not doing proper work).

Watching the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the US, it was impossible to miss the presence of tech bosses, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla, SpaceX and X. 

A solid 🧱 of tech broligarchs parked in front of the president’s cabinet might illuminate the current state of democracy, but here at Working It, we’re concerned with what it says about the workplace. Strikingly male — it would seem that Zuckerberg’s wish for business to have more “masculine energy” is already being granted. (So much for Sheryl Sandberg urging women to lean in). I asked three experts to read the runes.

André Spicer, executive dean of Bayes Business School, says it’s a “sign that previously progressive companies are shifting to the right. As big tech firms turn down the dial on [diversity, equity and inclusion] and climate issues, others may follow. Corporates are often like teenagers and they carefully observe and follow what the cool kids are doing. In this case, the ‘cool kids’ are the likes of Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos.” 

This could mean less diversity training and working from home and more concern with free speech and contributions to national economic growth. “A culture of nationalism may replace a culture of globalism in some firms.” 

Bruce Daisley, workplace culture speaker and former vice-president for Europe at Twitter, notes it signifies a transformation in tech work culture, once regarded as the “place of luxury perks and benefits”. That’s certainly been changing since Elon Musk demanded a return to the office and Amazon followed suit.

“There’s been something of a changing of the philosophy in tech. The power used to be with engineers but Zuckerberg has said that 80 per cent of code deployed this year will be by AI. The tech firms suddenly find themselves with a surplus of labour and they’re willing to turn the screw on their remaining employees.” 

Margaret Heffernan, entrepreneur and author of Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril, has “always flinched when we talk about bosses as leaders”. She says we are about to find “quite a lot are followers rather than leaders. We might see some who have spines.” Some employers will think, “Hurrah, now we can get rid of the D&I stuff, forget about sustainability and get back to business as usual. They will love a return to Zuckerberg’s macho business message.”

Others will double down to defend what they always believed in and will argue that doing otherwise suggests a lack of leadership and integrity. “Many will vacillate between the two, waiting to see the way the wind blows.”

I’d be interested in your thoughts so email [email protected]. Isabel is back next week.

DEI is obsessing Davos attendees as well

Kevin Delaney, editor-in-chief of Charter, the future-of-work media and research firm, has been going to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos for more than 20 years. He’s there again this week and shared this early snapshot from conversations at the convening of top corporate and political leaders:

“Every business, you will see pulling back from DEI,” Nikki Haley, the US politician who now serves as vice chair of consultancy Edelman, told a packed room full of executives. Haley said she welcomed a retreat from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and understood the feelings of white men who felt they were treated unfairly.

In private conversations, other US and European executives similarly confessed they felt corporations had gone too far and expressed relief the pendulum was swinging back away from DEI. But others noted that diversity was linked to business outperformance, with 44 per cent of the fastest-growing and most profitable companies saying the impact of their DEI efforts is strongly positive, according to AlixPartners research.

And, in practice, DEI describes a broad group of activities ranging from gender and racial quotas to pay-equity analysis and diversity training. So it remains unclear what a retreat from DEI would mean exactly.

“We have to judge results, not press releases,” cautioned Lareina Yee, McKinsey senior partner. But Intesa Sanpaolo, the 90,000-employee Italian bank, is leaning into DEI programs.

“We believe there is a value in diversity, particularly because the young people are asking for this,” Intesa Sanpaolo chief financial officer Luca Bocca explained. The bank has had a requirement for the last several years that 50 per cent of all new executive appointments must go to women and has no plans to abandon that.

This week on the Working It podcast

Running a business is rewarding in plenty of ways — not least in terms of salary. But it can also be extremely lonely. Having friends at work becomes complicated (or even impossible), and you can’t be sure if people like you, or if they’re just saying what they think you want to hear. If you’re the boss, how can you learn to live with those downsides? To find out, Isabel Berwick speaks to Allan Barton (former MD of the waste disposal group Shanks), and Tiffany Gaskell, co-chief executive at the coaching consultancy Performance Consultants International. Listen here.

Five top stories from the world of work

1. The thing about rich bosses: Pilita Clark shares new research showing the gap between wealthy and non-wealthy workers is growing and why segregation in the office matters.

2. Why so few women partners? Ask the Big Four: Investment column Lex takes a wry look at why women are under-represented in management in the consultancy industry, naturally with a handy PowerPoint.

3. Goldman Sachs taps new generation of leaders: The Wall Street bank has shaken up its top ranks to capitalise on an expected Wall Street boom under Trump. And in a bid to fend off defections, the bank also unveiled a new pay plan for senior managers.

4. CEOs need a mindset shift on growth: Apart from the tech universe, we seem to be in the era of the cost-cutters, not the innovators, writes management editor Anjli Raval. Corporate leaders must embrace risk more for the long-term good of their companies, she says.

5. What is the future of the corporate HQ? Anjli Raval talks to large and small employers and experts in the field of office design to find out how companies are reimagining their headquarters.