The future of fairness with Aubrey Blanche – episode 12

Episode 12 summary

January 23, 2025 // 28 min, 57 sec

The world has legislated for a fairer workplace and companies have promoted their contribution to a fairer world for years. But has much really changed? By 2050, fairness and purpose will look completely different, and employers will have to adapt to new demands from employees.​

In this episode:

Marissa is joined by Yale- and Stanford-educated Aubrey Blanche, a consultant for equitable organizational design to explore how to hardwire fairness into our businesses.​

• As economic pressures give some employers an excuse to pivot away from DEI, what’s the prize for staying the course?​
• Employers have attached themselves to high-sounding purpose statements, but many have strayed out of their lane and become less than credible.​
• Will businesses have to show support for and even skill up their employees to be effective activists?​
• Will the shareholder model of capitalism be overtaken by stakeholder capitalism where workers demand a fairer share of the value they create?

Episode transcript

Marissa Geist 

Welcome to “The talent time machine,” the podcast for talent leaders that takes you on a trip to the world of work 2050. We're going to think about the trends, possibilities, and new realities for talent. 

We know that purpose of our companies can be a powerful way to attract people. Today, we'll be exploring what that means for talent in 2050. Will environmental and social performance prove more of a magnet than a bigger paycheck? I'm Marissa Geist, and I'm joined by Aubrey Blanche, a Yale and Stanford educated consultant who advises on the design of employee experience and more equitable organizations. Welcome, Aubrey. Glad to have you today. 

Aubrey Blanche    

Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to be here. 

Marissa Geist  

I am excited you're here too. And before we jump in, I wanted to take a minute to ask you a little bit about your background and also for you to talk a minute about your company because it's a really interesting and unusual space to be in. So can you just tell us a little bit about how you got into what you're doing and what it means to advise on employee experience and equitable organizations? 

Aubrey Blanche    

Yeah, absolutely, so… I thought I was going to go be a professor. I went to go get a PhD. But like many people who end up in the tech industry, I dropped out. I did not know it was trendy. And I was in business development for a little while.  

But, as I landed in tech as a queer disabled Latina woman, I realized that it wasn't an industry that was really set up for me. So that was kind of where I took the swerve into what I would call purpose-driven work. So I've been working in the field of equity and inclusion for a decade at this point, and it really has encompassed a lot of different focuses.  

So I have kind of two roles now. I'm the VP of equitable operations at employee experience platform Culture Amp. So I look after people operations, the formal equity and inclusion department, but also sustainability and the corporate foundation. And across all of those functions, we take a very human equity-led lens to what we do. So I'm still doing equity work, but in a broader set of contexts.  

And then, in my side gig, I consult with companies on equity in all aspects of organizational operations. So policies, communications, programs, leadership development. And so equity and that bit about fairness and treating people well is the through line of everything I do, because I believe that it really needs to happen in all contexts. 

Marissa Geist  

And that is really fascinating work. So many of us have jobs that didn't exist even when we graduated from college in whatever year that was. We don't need to name years on here, as I am increasingly the oldest person in every room I'm in. But in terms of that journey and what you saw at the start of your career in the discussion and what is talked about now. How has that changed? What's come in and out of the discussion? 

Aubrey Blanche    

I think it's really interesting that we've seen a lot of different waves of this work. So when I came into it, it was not quite as trendy. And then in about 2014, 2015, it became the thing that you should be seen doing. And so we had a lot of fakers in the mix, not necessarily the activists doing the work, but the leaders who were giving them budgets and then took those budgets away 18 months later. 

And so I think we're in a moment right now where we're seeing a real bifurcation. So Culture Amp just put out a research report this month that showed that, for example, there's a drop in the use of external consultants. There's a drop in dedicated DEI roles in companies. But what we're actually seeing is while some companies are divesting or moving away because of polarization and silly political pressure, the companies that are investing in this are actually doubling down.  

And so I, in some ways, think this is a good thing. That what we're seeing is the authentic action is really happening and the companies who didn't care are starting to show their actual hands. I think that that sets us up for a much better future because it's going to be a market where talent is more determinative. And so if you can see how a company actually is, that means talent is going to be able to be more discerning about where they take their talents. 

Marissa Geist  

It is good because then all the polluters of the large social experiment we’re in, if you were only half in and you were giving it lip service, you'll be washed out. But it's a long game. And that's one of the reasons we wanted you on this podcast is we really try to look ahead if you can't even imagine in 2050.  

I think one of the things that I'm so excited to talk to you about is the view of purpose and meaning and what that looks like, what is that expectation from an employer in 2050? Because it's a new thing that we're asking of our employers in the last 10 years, to say, what do you stand for? What's your purpose? Why do you exist? How will that evolve in 2050? Are we asking organizations to carry that banner? Is it something outside the organization? What do you think that looks like in 2050? 

Aubrey Blanche 

That's such a good question, and I think it's a really pointed one in today's era that I think the thinking will evolve over time. My belief is that businesses in general should stay in their lane, and that can still be a very expansive definition. But I don't think every company should be commenting or taking a stand on every single issue, because I think they sometimes do not add value to the conversation or do not add weight to something that's really important.  

So I think it's really important for companies in particular to be clear about what their guardrails are and really make statements aligned to their values and the unique contribution that they can make. That said, I think it's very different to think about what a corporate position is compared to the positions of leaders and employees within that organization.  

So I do think there is an increasing expectation that senior leaders with a lot of power do take moral and principled stances at those purpose and mission led companies. I think that means that we actually need to give a lot more support to those leaders who are elevated to those positions, mostly because they could drive revenue or run operations, not because they were seen as social leaders. And so I think that infrastructure needs to be built.  

The last piece is I think that assuming that employees aren't engaging in like advancing hatred in some way, which I know that some activism can fall into, I believe that organizations have a moral obligation to empower employees to speak up on issues. 

That doesn't mean that they're going to get their company to take a position on everything, but I do think it's important to protect employees, especially those that are engaging in activism on difficult issues in ways that are principled and full of compassion, that they receive support or at least aren't punished for it. And I wouldn't say that's the status quo now. 

Marissa Geist  

I think that's really interesting. That is the exception right now. And I think 20 years, 30 years from now, is that the norm where people are used to navigating social and work-life balance? It just doesn't exist. There are no walls because everything is ultimately transparent. Or where do you think this could go? 

Aubrey Blanche    

I think as we move into this more like mission, purpose-based world of work, we as organizations actually need to think of activism and advocacy as a learnable skill. And in the same way we're investing in AI literacy and prompt engineering or P&L management, we need to think about building the specific emotional and tactical skills that employees need to advocate effectively and in ways that don't harm the people around them. So I think that's really, really important to understand is that we do have a responsibility to employees to support them in that advocacy.  

Marissa Geist  

I mean, it's interesting you phrase it that way because it's arguably something that people that have succeeded in past have learned how to do without naming it as a skill that is teachable. People that know how to advocate in a way that doesn't alienate others, that garners followership. That's nothing new, but I guess the newness is assuming that's a teachable skill versus just sort of a personality characteristic.  

But if you can take a minute to talk a little bit more about like, what would that what does that look like in terms of teaching that in terms of, how would you even go about arming an organization with the ability to do that? Where do you start? 

Aubrey Blanche 

So I think it comes down to the underlying philosophy. And what I mean is I talk about this idea of shareholder versus stakeholder capitalism. So shareholder capitalism, basically, we're not actually talking a long period of time that this idea has taken over as the dominant theory of what the purpose of businesses is. The contrast to that is this idea of stakeholder theory or stakeholder capitalism, where we think not just about the folks who own the company, but also everyone impacted by the business. And so I think that we can move to that model. 

I think you can make a principled choice to run a business in that way. And I think there are models of that. And something that I've really learned from working at Culture Amp and watching Didier Elzinga, who's our CEO, do that. And I wouldn't say he's all the way over in the shareholder bucket. But what I've seen him do is taking some really principled stances on the way to run the business and been really clear about what those priorities are to investors so that investors that are principally aligned can make those financial investments.  

So I don't think there's inherent trade-off between financial performance and that. So one example of that is that Culture Amp is a venture-backed tech company, but we're also a B-Corp, which is not usually what a B-Corp looks like. And that was something that was done far before my time, because Didier said, he often talks about, we love the business that we're in. We love being an employee experience, but he says that the contribution that Culture Amp's gonna make is gonna be more about how they run the business than what business they're in.  

And so I've seen time and again him be really clear about the priorities and the way they're running the business such that the right people can opt in. So I think it's that philosophy that like the world can be different and here are the choices I can make to align to the world. 

But then you also need a leader who's willing to go out and say the thing that their peers might not be saying. And making choices in a principled way that, again, brings other people along with you. 

Because your people will find you. And there are enough people out there to start changing the world with you. You just need to tell them where you are. 

Marissa Geist  

So I wanna pick up on that. That your people are out there and they will find you and there's enough people, that's true. There are enough fish in the sea, as it were. I really like the challenge to the... how do leaders get into social issues? You're not talking about social issues at all. You're talking about personal principles or guiding principles for the way that you act in a company. And I think that's really meaningful. We talk about, the leadership will be judged on the kind of worst behavior that they tolerate type thing. That idea sits with me really heavily. And so one of the things that that I espouse in the company and I hope that my team would say that I hold up is that we make decisions when we need to make decisions because nothing's more frustrating than kicking a can down the road when you just don't want to make the decision, but you should face into the decision.  

That's not a social justice. That's not a, it's not an inclusive thing, but it is telling you about the way that you'll have to work if you want to work here. 

And being clear about that actually attracts a culture and attracts a type of person that really wants that type of working. So that's nice and it helps me illustrate when you say stay in the lane. That's a good way to stay in the lane. You can espouse values about how you'd like people to treat each other in the room, how you'd like people to treat each other at work that just make the business run. And by the way, it could be making the world a better place too.  

Aubrey Blanche   

Totally. And I think something that might resonate with you, just getting the vibe, and I'm really curious for your thoughts on, is one of the ideas that Angela Davis… these different abolitionists have talked about is that the most effective way that we can each combat oppression, which tends to be a lot of the issues I work with, is we each pull on the thread of the fabric that's closest to us. And so when I say stay in your lane, I'm not suggesting that you stay out of social issues. I'm suggesting you do a thoughtful analysis of your particular privileges, oppressions, and the power that you have access to, and using that in the unique way only you can to create change.  

And so, I'm curious for you, personal question, obviously we're sitting here and you're doing amazing work talking about the future, but if there were one lane you felt like you played in really well or should play in, what would your lane be or what is one lane that you would define for yourself? 

Marissa Geist  

I think the lane that I play in and try to advocate for is boundaries of mental health at work, sort of mental health and physical health at work. And this is something that I try to make a comfortable space to talk about. 

So really making it comfortable to say, I'm on vacation with my family. I can't talk. I need a flexible work arrangement because something is happening in my life. And I'll give you an example of why this is near and dear to my heart. When I started working, I had my first son very early, so early in my career. And he's an amazing 21-year-old now.  

But when I started, it was in the days of dropping your kid off at daycare at like 6:45 in the morning and then going to get them at 5pm at night. And thankfully we're out. I'm hoping that that tide is ebbing as far as that as a reality for working mothers because it was heartbreaking.  

But I had a boss that said if you ever have to leave work for something child-related, don't mention it that it's your child. You can say I have another appointment or whatever, but you don't want anyone to think that you're prioritizing family over work.  

And that was like really hurtful when I heard that because I'm like this, my son is like a huge part of my life, but that was the reality of the work environment I was in. You had to pretend like you didn't have a family. You didn't have anything else happening. So being able to talk about and have a family, have emotions, have a life outside of work and also be okay to say, these are the boundaries of when I am going to work. It's a small thing, but not emailing at night or on the weekend. Or if you do, don't engage a whole bunch of people to make sure that that's what they think that they need to be doing too.  

So it is saying that, you know, to be a, you can be a great working mother, but it doesn't happen by accident. And you have to have a community that wants to engage in that type of discussion. So that's probably, the one that I've, I've advocated for is, is being a realistic working mother.  

And now of course, as I've been plummeted into menopause, that's going to be near and dear… not near and dear, it is unfortunately like woven into the fabric of my being at this moment. And so I've been advocating about... I have so much respect for how many women had to work in soaking wet sweaty suits all day long and nobody could talk about it. Normalizing talking about the fact that your body is basically being hijacked for any number of years. I am early in the journey on it. And I say that almost three years into it, unbelievably still. 

I will keep talking about it until no one shies away from talking about it when they're around me because I know I'm probably going to tell them I'm having a hot flash or ask them who in your life is probably going on this journey and how are you getting ready to support them in this journey? So those are my threads that are near and dear to my heart I would say. 

Aubrey Blanche    

Oh my God, I love those lanes.  

Marissa Geist  

Okay. So Aubrey, as you talk about the shareholder value, kind of going bust, when we talk about a stakeholder value and employees sharing in the benefit, you know, sharing in good press is one thing, but do you think that employees will want to share in the cash that they're creating as a better company and a better culture? 

Aubrey Blanche    

Yeah, so I think it really dovetails with this idea of having a differentiated reward model and giving people in the same roles equal value, but constructing that value differently. So I think if we talk about this idea of stakeholder organizational theory, that we could also say there are people who want to be owners in the company, and they want to take on a bigger piece of ownership of that, and they might trade that for short-term cash.  

And so, I think we see this in tech, it's pretty normal to be part-owners. So like, in some ways, I don't see that as like a 2050 visionary thing that employees could be like shareholders as well as stakeholders in the running of an organization. And so I think that the structures operationally already exist to achieve that. The question is, do you as an organization decide to make everyone an owner? And what does that mean in terms of purpose, ownership, the way jobs are constructed, the way people relate to their jobs?  

Or do you say, here is a menu of all of the value that you can get out of contributing your talent and labor to this organization, you pick from the menu and construct, like, here's your total value, here's your menu, you pick the pieces that matter to you, one of which could be ownership in the company, whether that's stock or percent ownership, depending on the structure.  

Some employees, it might actually be just give me a paycheck and let me go home. But there are other employees who are going to demand something different in terms of what remuneration means to them. And so it goes back to this idea of how do we get more flexible and have a broader set of offerings to meet the very divergent needs and preferences of the changing workforce? 

Marissa Geist  

What you're saying then, just to play it back, is an offering or I want the purpose alignment has often been conflated with a social activism or a social belief. When you're saying, my purpose might be I'm here to make some money and that's it. And so I want a job that gives me the most amount of money and lets me get out versus somebody else who might be saying what you have to offer me has to give me some sense of community or I'm not interested in this and maybe it has more flexibility, but that combination is what they'll demand.  

So fair to say what we'll be looking for in 2050 are companies that have a very specific, very well-defined, what is the set of offerings and how does that relate to what employees’ purpose of being at that job is. Is that fair to say? 

Aubrey Blanche    

Absolutely, and I can even imagine a world where… and this is me kind of like speculating but I think it would be cool… is you have one employee who feels that their purpose in life is to spend as much time with their family as possible and so for them having flexibility and being paid well in cash is important because that allows them to invest their time and resources in the thing that gives them purpose. 

Now there might be someone who is sitting right next to them doing the same job collaborating with them on processing payroll. And for them, social issues are the thing that gives them purpose in doing that. And so maybe as a part of their compensation package, 10% of the total value of their remuneration is dedicated to nonprofits or other causes that meaningfully impact the kinds of issues that they're most passionate about.  

And so a company from a balance sheet perspective says it's the same dollars going out the door, but I'm giving more employee choice to that. And sure, is that operationally more complex? Is it a more complex question to think about what equity looks like in that context?  

I think that is, in some ways, a wild idea, but I also think that it's not one of those things that's out of the realm of possibility before 2050. 

Marissa Geist  

That is really interesting. A lot of the things that you've touched on in terms of the world of 2050 have roots in the best practices that are bright spots today that exist in the world. So that is really the culmination of every type of reward, total incentive and saying you actually can choose to donate to a charity or maybe I want a month off every year.  

And so my menu of what this looks like is every single compensation value generation lever in a total rewards package that is not for the faint of heart to undertake architecting that at a company. So I mean, I think someone could vision it, pulling it off with all of the legislation might take till 2050. Just trying to figure out how to make that work. 

Aubrey Blanche 

Oh absolutely, I think it's going to take some visionaries to think about what could be possible, but kind of to the idea of everybody has a lane. It's also going to take some people who get in the weeds and are super operational and figure out how to turn that vision into something that equals a paycheck or a share option agreement or things like that. And so again, I go back to this idea that it's going to take a team of people with really diverse skill sets to actually get to the future that I think we already have planted the seeds of. 

Marissa Geist  

So if I have to pull that forward to say, we don't know anything about the future, right? There are no future facts, but in 2050, you better not think just a standard paycheck is gonna cut it in terms of being compelling as an employer. Hopefully those days are long gone, that we're in a much different and better place. 

Aubrey Blanche 

I think we can hope so, but I would say I'm optimistic about it. 

As someone who's in people ops and also equity, it's not an impossible operational question.  

Marissa Geist  

So not everyone needs to be Patagonia to be an effective company in the future. You can drive real financial value through thinking about this combination of the give-get between employees and the workforce.  

The other point just in terms of the added complexity, right now we have more people over the age of 65 than under the age of five in the world, which is amazing to think about in 2050. Either we'll have people that have been working in their careers for over 60 years, or we'll have a very young workforce or we'll have something in between, but we'll have certainly not even just personal choice, but personal ability to work in different ways as we have this very different demographic going in. So just one last question on kind of getting ready for 2050. How have you seen that multi-generational conversation really come up and what are you seeing advocated for there to get ready for the future? 

Aubrey Blanche

So I would say, I'll tell you what I've seen, and then I’ll tell you what I wish for, which is I've seen a lot of the multi-generational conversation focused on either the tension between the different needs or preferences of the different generations, and quite frankly, a lot of ageism. Certainly, as generations get more progressive, there are certain limitations of previous generations, but there's also incredibly valuable contributions that come with wisdom. 

I'm really inspired by the way that indigenous communities tend to see age, and that they see it as something valuable, and that people with more experience and more time on this earth have something really meaningful and important and crucial to contribute to those future generations. And so I think that moving to that kind of a philosophy, it changes how we think about it as, sure, there might be things that certain generations are better at than others that are related to the time at which they come into the workforce. But how do we begin to parse out those things and find ways to get after them?  

And there's a line of research that I'm super interested in by this professor named David Galenson. He has this book called Old Masters and Young Geniuses, where he talks about two different styles of human creativity and innovation. He studied artists. And there's two types of innovators. 

There's experimental innovators who tend to make their big contributions at age 67. And they tend to do better by working as apprentices with masters. So they learn from older generations in really useful ways. And so I think finding ways to connect people intergenerationally, especially those that innovate in that way, is really powerful. 

The other innovator is called a conceptual innovator. They’re younger, so their contributions tend to be in their late 20s, and they tend to benefit from being around other people like them in similar age cohorts. And so if we could typologize people and understand the way that we get the most out of their contributions in work or, quite frankly, in the world, I think we would start to reduce the tension and the conflict that we're seeing because we're going from a philosophy that everyone has something of value to offer and it's incumbent on us to put them in the situation to express that.  

And so I think as we do that, a lot of the problems or challenges of this idea of the changing generational composition of the workforce become a lot less dire. 

Marissa Geist 

That is a really great practical framework to think of that. And I really am excited because of the technology we have and because... physical ability will be taken off the table in a lot of professions as something that limits different generations from working, different abilities working in the workplace and even things such as hearing loss like I have two parents that are in their 70s and the change in their ability to even engage in conversation with hearing aids.  

Now hearing aids are like amazing these days they're so much better than the old ones were but that that connection and ability to keep up with the pace of conversation. It is just tremendous. 

So again, fast forward 2050. Hopefully we have the technology that even takes away some of that ageism through just making sure that everybody's abilities are more on a level playing field. 

And I know we are about at time, so I want to close with first of all thanking you for such an entertaining and fast moving discussion.  

But I want to ask: four stakeholders I have in my mind that I would love your drop of wisdom. So like, if you had one thing to say to each one of these four stakeholders in my life or in anyone else's life about getting ready, looking forward to 2050, but what can you do today to be ready for 2050? So if you're looking forward to 2050, what would you tell your board, your boss, your team that you lead, and your family? 

Aubrey Blanche 

Board, train them on sustainability and help them understand the existential risk to the world and the business that the climate poses and how relevant it is to everyone.  

My boss, I would say be really clear with your boss about your values and boundaries so they know the employee that they're getting. I can say that from experience, it works out well if you pick correctly.  

I think for your team, you are really clear with them about as a leader, your accountabilities to them. So how they can hold you accountable, but what they're all entitled to from you as someone in a position of power over them.  

And then your family, I think, honestly, I think that celebrating the humanity in them and putting the time in to nourish those connections, if family is something that is important to you. I think it's really important as a queer person to put like an asterisk on family that I don't mean necessarily people who are biologically related to you, but the people who like uplift you and bring you that sense of connection and fulfillment. So I think that's about seeing the beauty in them and taking the time to invest in it. 

Marissa Geist 

Those are very applicable short sound bites that I can take back. And I should have edited to say, selfishly for my own children, if I have four boys that are going into the workforce in the next 10 years, one of them is already in it, what would you say as young men coming into the workforce and getting ready for the new reality? What would you give them as a word of advice? 

Aubrey Blanche 

So one, the thing you walk by is the thing you tolerate and the world you create. And two, as men in the world, you actually have an incredible amount of power to both imagine and create the world that you see. So be thoughtful of the access you have and figure out how to share it with others. 

Marissa Geist 

I think that thread has pulled through as far as that your own thread close to you, the connectivity between what you can control and how you bring your own experience and power to bear in a way that is good or bad. My mother used to tell me that friends and people that surround you are like elevator buttons. They either bring you up or bring you down, but nobody keeps you on the same floor. It's a shout out to Carolyn Patitucci right there. 

But that's a lot of what I hear kind of in this sentiment is nobody is a tourist in this world. You're impacting in one way or another. So thank you for this. And thank you so much for joining us. Lots of really good and thoughtful things to think about how the world will evolve as we move into 2050. 

Marissa Geist

Join me next time on the trip to work 2050 in “The talent time machine.”  

To catch the next episode or hear from my previous guests, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform.  

This episode was edited and produced by Dusty Weis at Podcamp Media, with the support of Sarah Smelik, John McCarron and Laura Pykett of Heavenly and the team at Cielo of Sally Hunter, Annamarie Andrews and Susie Schuppel-Paul.  

For Cielo, thanks for listening... I'm Marissa Geist.