Moving DE&I forward through Certification
There’s been so much talk about how purpose is impacting brands and purchase intentions that I think every one is getting sick of hearing about it.
But we shouldn’t be. The reason that we latched onto this in the first place was that when COVID stripped away everything, we had to rely on our purpose to get through tough times. And more tough times are coming….or they never left.
It’s worth a look. Much of it reinforces what we have been seeing for a couple of years.
For example, it reinforces the idea that purpose makes a resilient brand and builds a stickier relationship with consumers.
There is also a consensus that the best way to show purpose is to be a good employer. Plenty of research has shown this and it’s why I contend there’s no such thing as an employer brand. This is good news because it presents a relatively safe and non-divisive way for any company to demonstrate purpose.
To an extent. Because as you broaden your demographic horizons out, you find that younger people and POC want to see purpose in terms of racial equality (and, I would assume, gender and sexual preference and trans), and these are issues where your purpose can help you gain people or lose them.
The most interesting new thing about the AMA research on purpose has to do with proof.
According to the report, “fully 60% of consumers say most companies are sincere in their socio-political commitments, but only 17% say they are very sincere. (The only exception is the highest earners -- over $125,000 -- of whom 40% say companies are very sincere.) Some 43% say most firms are only somewhat sincere, while 29% say they are insincere.”
People are skeptical. Hell, I’m skeptical. I get it. You wonder—do these people really sincerely believe these things or are they just trying to “put a fire out.”
Not surprisingly, they are looking for third party validation. First day of PR class.
From the report: “Reflecting this skepticism, the most widely trusted information on how companies are living up to their stated purpose comes from non-corporate sources: the news media (39%) and third party ratings (37%). Company ads are trusted by just one-third (33%), and corporate responsibility reports by just one-fourth (25%).”
Emphasis added. This is an interesting idea. You remember seeing those ISO 14001 flags. You have looked for the Underwriter Laboratories certificate. If you’ve worked in healthcare, you know the terror of a JCAHO audit.
More recently, the Green Building Council is a good example. They have recently re-focused and now are known as the Green Business Council.
Think about what something like that would do in the DEI field. A set of thoughtful best practices, transparency in terms of implementing them and the results…we know that diversity is good for business—especially as talent is short—and having a commonly agreed-upon standard would help keep companies focused and ensure that the goalposts aren’t always moving.
Done right, this could be a game-changer.