All right. I want to give you a couple of tools here.
How many of you have ever heard of the big corps? Oh, my goodness.
Okay. Wow. The B Corp is a fascinating venture.
Started out by three ex investment bankers in the United States.
They were roommates at Stanford University. Each one went off and did their own thing.
Two of them started a business that then they sold for millions and millions and millions and went into investment banking.
And the other one was already in private equity and investment banking.
And about ten years down the road after they'd graduated, they kept in communication with one another.
And they basically said, you know, there are lots of people in our company that would really like to be doing something that is not,
as I said, the best in the world, but the best for the world.
There are lots of companies out there that really want to be able to pull these things together.
How do we make that happen in a way that is recognised by policymakers and the legislature?
And if you look up the B Corp today on the net,
you will see that what they have succeeded in doing is establishing an entirely new legal framework that has been passed,
I think in about 25 U.S. states and in many countries around the world.
You have big corporations here in the U.K. And what it is,
is it's a for profit company which basically says, we are a company, we're not a social charity thing.
We are a company. We're really interested in having financial health.
But that's not all we're about. We really also want to be responsible in many different ways, in terms of environment, in terms of social, etc., etc.
And these are companies from every single kind of industry you can imagine.
And I will show you some of the examples.
And so what the big corporations succeeded in doing, working very closely with some law firms, some major law firms, was to get individual states.
And, you know, in the United States, it's like Oxford. You have, you know, very independent colleges here.
You have very independent states. Each one has their own governing bar and everything else is like a federation.
Same thing in the US. So they had to go to each one of these particular states to get this through.
And the last one that they've just gotten is Delaware. If you get Delaware, you get everything,
because that's where some of the most important were all the all the company many companies go as a tax haven, etc.
And what they have succeeded in doing is companies come forward.
It's a very tough certification process. And I'm going to show you how that works.
And they go through a certification process where you have to get a minimum score and the minimum score is 80.
I can tell you that the maximum score is 240.
Nobody gets up to 40. Okay. And you're going to see why.
And this allows it's a certification, it's like fair trade, etc., and it gets audited every other year.
And they are able to actually display this because I'm a big corporation label.
And what it means is that your customers know that not only are you fair, not only are you doing the right thing by your workers,
not only are you doing the right thing by environment, but you are actually being recognised as such.
Do these companies get a tax break? No. What's in it for them?
Again, attracting talent. Really being able to say, you know, keep talent and not just the talent, but also they do much better financially.
So let's look at some of these I'm going to show you. So let's where are we?
We are this is just to preview the assessment, because I wanted to walk you through this.
Let's say we are. Where do you want to go? Let's say we're in the UK, okay.
Because we are. So we're in the United Kingdom.
Okay. What sector do you want to be?
Do you want to be in service sector? Do you want to be in agriculture?
Manufacturing, wholesale retail? Wholesale retail?
So which is that sound good? Okay. Let's say we are wholesale retail.
And just to show you, this is not just for big companies. How many people do you think we have in the company?
Shall we go? What do you want to do?
No one denies. Shall we go 1 to 9 since we're just starting out?
Okay, cool. One, two, nine. And now we're going to see what we're going to get.
So this is just a preview of some of the things.
So these are the things that you would begin to look at in terms of your checklist.
The cool thing about this. And number one, it's open source.
You can all use it without a problem and it will help you God and help you God.
But don't look at it like a test. I have to get to 100% on this or I have failed.
You are going to fail, okay? You're going to fail miserably.
So this is a diagnostic of where you need to get better.
And that's what many of these companies look,
the guys that I worked with in the Goldman Sachs tend to the the best company that got the highest score in this thing.
You know what? It was a 30 out of 80 being the top.
I mean, he thought he was on cloud nine, but, you know, there was there.
It really helps you think through where do I need to go?
So if you're going to these are the three things under governance, corporate accountability, transparency and governance metrics.
So easy stuff. Does your company have a corporate mission statement and does it include any of the following check all that apply.
I don't have a written statement. We have a written corporate mission statement that does not include social or environmental commitment.
That's what most would be. And on and on. So you check that. And then there's the board of directors, your other governing body review,
the company social environmental performance on at least an annual basis to determine if you're meeting.
Yes. No. Probably no. So on and on.
So all of these are helpful in terms of looking at how do I in corporate governance,
if I really want to look at improving governance beyond the management team, does the company have the following governance structures in place?
These are just a smattering of questions for how many how many employees did we say up to nine.
So even here, you can begin to actually incorporate this kind of thinking into what it is that you're doing and other aspects of this.
Let's go into transparency. That's a nerve racking one.
There's a company produce financials that are reviewed by the board while they have to be or by an independent.
Here in England, they have to be.
Does the company have a formal process to share financial information except salary info with its full time employees?
Many don't. Many don't. So I'm going to leave you to look at this at your leisure.
Here are some governance metrics.
And you can see that they have revisit this because you don't know it'll it'll continue to help you got to help guide you in this.
And then we'll go to workers. Let's look at what they say about workers. How many full time workers do you have at this point?
How many full time workers did you have 12 months ago?
How many part time workers? Blah, blah blah. Select from the below.
Do you pay them annually? Do you pay them hourly? Which do you think would be better?
What would be more fair? Hourly, annually, performance, space, etc.
So again, you get a certain number of points for that.
Community. So you see for each one of these.
There is something that can help guide you. Oh, and under workers, you have compensation and benefits.
Worker ownership. That's a that's an interesting question.
How many people. Actually give equity to their workers.
So. It's interesting to see how they weight this,
what percentage of the company is owned or formerly reserved as part of a written plan for full time workers and management?
What percentage of the company now this is? Obviously, they're looking at the retail.
Okay. And then you've got work environment.
Is there a way of, you know, is there an established, formal, consistent process for providing performance feedback to all tenured employees?
I hate to tell you we don't have that at Oxford. I mean, they do and they don't.
Okay. So many of these, you know, performance reviews, 360 performance reviews, etc., extremely helpful.
But a lot of times companies just don't do it. You know, certainly I can tell you that many nonprofits don't do it.
They just figure because we're so wonderful and working for, you know, society, obviously we're all good.
Right. I'm sorry.
I'm being very cynical. Employee handbook, non-discrimination statement, etc., etc.
Let's go on up here. I'll tell you how.
My community. This is boring, but it's useful.
Okay, so remember what your mother or father always told you.
This is good medicine. If you're really going to go into this.
I thought when I put this presentation together, oh, my God, you know, it's like stick a spoon through my eye and show me this stuff.
You know, this is, like, so boring, but it's useful if you're really going to seriously think about how am I going to make this a
company that really is going to take into account these things and futureproof and continue to grow?
These are important things. So I did want to give you a flavour.
What percentage of your worker base has grown over the last 12 months?
What percentage of your worker base left? How many of you have ever been in a company where that turnover was unbelievable?
I mean, people were turning. I've been in companies where 40% every year left.
What does that tell you about a company and how workers are happy, not happy, etc.?
How do you motivate them? How do you reward them? So that's very important.
And do you draw from the community, for example? Huh?
Number of total and full time part time workers female employees that actually I don't like that that
particular thing because they're probably all female except for the CEO who's a male at any rate.
So there there are different aspects about community here.
Engagement.
Is your company have charitable giving practices full time employees granted you know writing you know any do they have options for volunteer.
Now those are things that are you would say well those are more sophisticated
companies but this this thing is going for people with up to nine employees.
So then environment, etc., etc.
So. I'm going to let you. Browse through this rather than continue to bore you.
And I'm going to show you some really fun stuff.