The Public Affairs Council has released a fascinating study that seeks to understand public opinion with respect to private companies and their advocacy activities. The report, entitled Public Affairs Pulse, What Americans Think About Business, surveyed 1,753 adult Americans and was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. I encourage reading the full report as it is full of rich information that will valuable to those of us in the business of enhancing the reputations of companies and industries. What you’ll find is that the public has very complex views of business, certainly not good in many ways, but not always bad.
One interesting chart tracks whose interests Americans think companies should serve. As you can see from the chart below, there’s a pretty dramatic change from 2002 to today, and not in ways you might expect.
Unsurprisingly, Americans do not believe that top executives deserve much attention. But I was surprised to see a 6% drop for employees at a time of high unemployment. And while customers are always at or near the top, they shot up 10% from 2002 to today. I would posit that many people answering this question are simply saying “me.” They should put my interests first. And most people don’t see themselves as employees, but rather as customers of companies.
I see that as a change and reflective of the erosion of the relationship between companies and their workforce. Employees today simply don’t expect any special claim on the companies that employ them beyond basic pay and benefits. They are just in a job and they have low expectations about any particular concern by their employers.
I’m not sure if that is good or bad. It just is. But I do think it is a change from a time when people worked for a company their entire lives, were loyal to it and expected some loyalty in return. Today, people seem to recognize that it is customers that keep a company afloat. No customers, no jobs. It does suggest a degree of sophistication that may not have existed in an earlier, more paternalistic, era.