Employee well-being, racial justice and increased flexibility are increasingly important priorities for companies. Several leaders spoke at Fortune’s “Most Powerful Women Summit” about ways in which their leadership style had shifted.
Companies placed a focus on supporting their workforce, looking into how their employees were treated. PayPal, for instance, evaluated its rate of pay for its employees and realized that some of its workers’ net disposable income, the money left over after essential expenses, was around 6 percent. They then set a goal to increase this to 25 percent, and so far have managed to lift it to 16 percent.
Other organizations also looked to give their employees space to rest and time away from screens, with Levi’s creating a “no meeting Friday” initiative.
“We always built our lives around work. Now we are in a period in America where we are building our life and having work fit into that,” said Amy Nelson, president of SaksWorks.
Racial justice became a priority, too, with companies turning inward to reflect on their values and pledging to help tackle the issue. PayPal committed $530 million to closing the racial wealth gap for businesses, and the NBA set up a coalition dedicated to social justice issues.
Other executives mentioned empathy as a skill that became strongly developed over the pandemic.
“We were steeped in a way of working that’s decades and decades old, and the pivot has been so fast,” said Liz O’Neill, COO and executive vice president of Levi’s. Whether these changes will last remains to be seen.
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