A Cure for the Common Company

10Counting Culture: Assessing Your Progress

FACED WITH NEGATIVE PUBLICITY IN the 1990s that its products were created in sweatshops across the globe and that its workplace was unfair to women, Nike had to commit to and measure its changes in response to the accusations about the well‐being of its employees as well as the environment. When two female employees filed a class action suit, Mark Parker, CEO at the time in 2018, issued a mass apology for the toxic culture. The company subsequently began reconciling promotions and salaries of female employees.¹

To work with its wide array of suppliers to incorporate worker engagement and well‐being processes in their overall HR approach, Nike developed its own Engagement and Wellbeing Survey (EWB). The survey aims to paint a comprehensive picture of the state of well‐being and engagement at each facility. By the end of 2020, the survey included 64 factories in 13 countries, with 385,000 workers.²

The company states that “each employee shapes Nike's culture through behaviors and practices.” The company solicits employee feedback through its EWB survey program, which allows each of the company's employees worldwide the opportunity to give confidential feedback. The survey measures employees' emotional commitment to the company, including satisfaction with their managers. The tool provides employees a path to speak up if they experience anything that doesn't align with the company's values or workplace policies. All of this is addressed ...