Good morning.
Labor Day is just three weeks away and will mark the start of another skirmish in the war between workers and managers over return to office. It’s a war because workers and managers have very different perceptions about performance during the pandemic. In a report on hybrid work, Microsoft asked employees whether they were being productive at work, and 87% said yes. But when the company asked leaders whether they were confident their employees were being productive at work, only 12% said yes. That’s according to a recent report from human capital research firm i4cp, which you can read here.
Kevin Oakes, CEO of i4cp, told me yesterday that “a lot of this boils down to trust. Do I trust that someone is working for me fully if I can’t see them?” That’s part of it, but I think the trust question goes deeper than that. Human beings are social animals, and meetings in person matter. While traveling in Abu Dhabi last week, I was able to resolve a half dozen issues that had been festering for months because I was there in person, engaging people with all five senses, and creating bonds that virtual meetings cannot. People who haven’t already built a reservoir of trust can resolve differences and misunderstandings better when together in person.
That’s why more and more companies are calling their employees back to the office—including the poster child of virtual work, Zoom, which is asking employees to return to the office two days a week. Oakes says he’s not a big fan of “peanut butter spread” policies forcing people back to work. But he does acknowledge the need for in-person meetings to build the trust that allows organizations to operate smoothly. “It’s a question of how you do it.”
Separately, Just Capital has a new report out giving kudos to four companies that are leading the pack in efforts to ensure gender diversity—by publishing data around women in their workforces, on their boards, and in their supply chains, and then making measurable progress to improve those numbers. The four? Citigroup, Accenture, General Mills and The Hartford. Each had female representation in their workforce at or near 50%, and each had above 40% female representation on their boards. Worth noting two of the four—Citigroup and Accenture—also have women in the top job. Just Capital also found that the percentage of U.S.-based companies that publicly disclose their EEO-1 data on racial, ethnic and gender diversity had tripled between 2021 and 2022, from 11% to 34%. (Companies are required by law to submit these reports to the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission but are not required to make them public.)
And speaking of in-person meetings, Fortune recently convened the Fortune Founders Forum in Deer Valley, Utah—on the eve of our annual Brainstorm Tech event—to give entrepreneurs an opportunity to build trust and share best practices for operating in a disrupted world. You can read profiles of the lucky 29 here.
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Disney hikes
The Walt Disney Company is raising the prices of its streaming services by as much as 27% for some offerings after losing $512 million from its direct-to-consumer division last quarter. The company also lost 12 million streaming subscribers, primarily in India after it lost the rights to stream Indian Premier League Cricket. Disney also announced that, like Netflix, it will consider cracking down on password sharing for Disney+. Bloomberg
Japan stalls
Japanese carmakers are struggling to stay afloat in China, with some reporting sales declines of as much as 50% for the first half of the year. Chinese consumers are flocking to locally-made electric cars, forcing Japanese companies to accelerate their plans to launch EVs in the country. China has already overtaken Japan as the world’s largest auto exporter, and analysts expect local brands to soon outsell foreign companies in China’s domestic auto market. The Wall Street Journal
Investment bans
The Biden administration will bar venture capital and private equity firms from making new investments in Chinese companies working in strategic sectors like chips, A.I., and quantum computing. While part of a wider drive to hinder China’s tech industry, Biden’s order, announced Wednesday, is the first time the U.S. has tried to broadly control investment flows into the country. U.S. venture capital investment in China has plummeted from $43.8 billion in the final quarter of 2021 to just $10.5 billion in the most recent quarter. The New York Times
AROUND THE WATERCOOLER
Fearing a repeat of Bud Light, U.K. government tells business leaders to stay away from politics and ‘woke’ culture wars by Prarthana Prakash
Male employees seem to really hate it when their companies advertise abortion access—but it makes the job applications roll in by Irina Ivanova
America’s credit card bill just passed a record $1 trillion. Here’s what it means by Alicia Adamczyk
Texting about work? Don’t risk it if you’re a CFO by Sheryl Estrada
SoftBank deprioritizes speed, goes all in on A.I. as it reports 343 of its portfolio companies have lost value by Jessica Mathews
From $47 billion to $270 million—WeWork, the Adam Neumann brainchild, keeps crashing after a ‘going concern’ warning by Will Daniel
This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Nicholas Gordon.
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