Amazon Employees for Climate Justice is a group of the company's workers "who believe it's our responsibility to ensure our business models don't contribute to the climate crisis".

I recently came across this recent article from the BBC news site in relation to 'Amazon' employees who have voiced concerns around certain climate change issues impacting, or being created by the company.

It seems that a certain group of Amazon employees have taken to forming an action group and voicing their views via social media, which is now something that is going against the HR policy they all signed up to.

 Amazon told the BBC the rules were not new, adding: "We recently updated the policy and related approval process to make it easier for employees to participate in external activities such as speeches, media interviews, and use of the company's logo."

It continued: "As with any company policy, employees may receive a notification from our HR team if we learn of an instance where a policy is not being followed."

If your a regular reader of my blogs you will know that I'm an advocate of employees becoming the 'authentic' voice of the company rather than the corporate marketing inauthentic crap messages that people are turning away from.

What we can evidence in this news report is that Amazon do indeed have a policy in place that provides parameters around what employees can/can't talk about, something we strongly advise when looking to energise employees as part of the 'advocacy' strategy, but a policy on it's own as we can see won't hold back the high level of emotive views held by incumbent employees, and what about those that have now left?. 

We've all seen many a post on news sites and social media including websites like 'Glassdoor' from former disgruntled employees. Recently we've seen numerous comments from former senior executives at global giant 'Google' who say that the company isn't really abiding by it's slogan 'Do no evil' to the detriment of employees and customers alike.

The Social Media pandora's box is well and truly open, and this is what scares the pants of leadership teams when encouraged to allow employees to become brand advocates.

So is the answer to have an insurance 'policy' in place that is policed by HR, or is it to ensure you have truly engaged and 'trained' your employees around the 'legality' of what they can/can't say about the company and brand on social media?

Does this 'climate change' awareness group actually add more credibility and authenticity to the 'Amazon' brand, or does it as some think act as a corporate mirror to the Amazon leadership team on a subject to which they are not comfortable with?

The great disrupter is being 'disrupted' from within maybe?

When you launch an 'employee advocacy' program it's a fact that most employees will need to leverage their own 'social footprint' in order to start the 'advocacy' ball rolling, which in reality means they will commence getting the message out there via their first degree friends, family, and business connections. 

For some of them this will be equally as difficult a thing to agree to as it is for the company wanting to leverage their network.