Increase Diversity With Proven Strategies From the World’s Biggest Companies

Ben Zhang, president and CEO of Top 40 supplier Greater Pacific Industries (asi/58135), founded his company 27 years ago. Originally from China, Zhang says promo, like many American business sectors, is white-dominated – particularly its upper echelons.

“Most Fortune 500 companies’ marketing managers and directors are white,” says Zhang, who has founded several businesses and holds degrees from the University of Washington, Cornell and Harvard. “They’re in charge of the budgets, and business is relational. They want to do business with people they know best.”

This is the self-perpetuating cycle with diversity – from ethnicity to gender to sexuality and beyond – that proponents are looking to break. “Social forces today are rippling through organizations, and it’s an unhealthy balance to keep the status quo to not include women or people of more diverse backgrounds from the C-suite – even in a small organization,” says Amy Wolf, founder and CEO of Evo3 Marketing (asi/190628).

Diversity in the workplace can take many forms, and all kinds of industries now see the benefits of bringing a wide range of voices to the table to lead, innovate and push for change. It allows for a variety of ideas and perspectives to be shared, and more opportunity for people to have input. That motivates and engages employees, which in turn reduces turnover and increases productivity, leading to better decision-making. Diversity also enhances the reputation of the company and the industry it’s a part of since leadership and staff are ostensibly more tolerant and accepting of the different communities and viewpoints represented.

“It’s not anyone’s fault, but promo has been a pretty white industry. We could actually use a shot in the arm with new ideas.” Kevin McCracken, Social Imprints

Leaders from many corners of the promo industry share this view, while also expressing frustration with promo’s lack of diversity on several fronts. Kevin McCracken, director of business development and co-founder at San Francisco-based Social Imprints (asi/164607), would like to see more conversations around inclusivity taking place in educational breakout sessions at the industry shows. “There should be a diversity track,” says McCracken, whose company opened in 2009 with a mission of providing high-paying jobs to at-risk adults in need of a second chance. “It’s not anyone’s fault, but promo has been a pretty white industry. We could actually use a shot in the arm with new ideas.”

So how can promo incorporate some fresh ideas that have made a real difference with diversity? By examining the successes of high-profile companies in other industries who have made impactful, measurable strides. Here’s a look at what a few major organizations have achieved with successful diversity strategies that promo companies of any size can emulate.

Coca-Cola

Anyone who remembers the groundbreaking 1971 Coca-Cola commercial, “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” won’t be surprised to hear the company is still a vocal, proactive supporter of diversity and inclusion. Today, the beverage conglomerate employs about 79,000 people worldwide and is proud to be “on the forefront of ensuring equality for its LGBTQ associates,” according to its website.

Corrine Gray, co-founder of apparel company Uncomfortable Revolution and a consultant to companies implementing DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) plans, says any company can put a rainbow flag in the window, but that companies’ external messaging must match the internal.

“For Pride Month, every company changes their logo – that’s an external message – but do members of the LGBTQ+ community feel they can be themselves at work?” asks Gray, whose company also brands items for corporate diversity programs. “Is health insurance in place for trans employees?”

To that end, since 2011 The Coca-Cola Company has offered transgender-inclusive health insurance coverage and in 2015 began helping same-sex partners offset the additional costs associated with same-sex partners’ health insurance in states where their unions were not recognized. Coca-Cola also partners with the Human Rights Campaign and maintains a perfect score on the campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. The index evaluates policies, practices and benefits pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees.

Salesforce

Salesforce, a San Francisco-based software company that makes customer relationship management software, understands that advancing racial equity rests not only on who it hires, but also where the organization itself spends money. In an interview with the San Francisco Business Times, Director of Supplier Diversity and Sustainability Madison Gunter talked up the company’s establishment of the Racial Equality and Justice Task Force, the goals for which included changes to its philanthropy, policy and purchasing.

“A lot of companies do what I call ‘DEI Light.’ You know, ‘Make sure everyone puts their pronouns in their email signature!’ But They’re not willing to have uncomfortable conversations.”Corrine Gray, Uncomfortable Revolution

“Investing in minority-owned businesses and creating more opportunities in our communities is a powerful way we can use our platform to advance equality,” Gunter told the magazine. To that end, Salesforce has created twin “$100M pledges”: In the procurement space, it will spend $100 million with Black-owned businesses over the next three years and ensure a 25% year-over-year growth in spending with minority-owned businesses overall. Regarding investments, it has committed to $100 million of intentional capital to empower companies led by Black and underrepresented minority founders.

Additionally, Salesforce has already met its goal that, by the end of 2023, half of its U.S. employees would be from underrepresented groups. Its newest commitment: doubling the U.S representation of Black employees in leadership (VP and higher) at the company by the end of next year.

IBM

Multinational technology company IBM had a strong and swift reaction to the horrific wave of anti-Asian violence tied to the onset of COVID-19. In response, the company published research by its IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) and made it available for free online. The research surveyed 1,455 Asian American senior executives, senior managers, junior executives and entrepreneurs across a broad cross-section of industries between August 2020 and January 2021. The insights were revealing. For example, eight in 10 Asian American professionals say they’ve personally experienced discrimination based on their ethnicity or race. Some of the findings were also surprising, including the fact that “Using effective communication” was ranked as the top skill for themselves personally and to enable success in America. “This,” concluded the report, “belies stereotypes of Asians as both STEM-obsessed and reserved in demeanor, assumptions that have historically limited their exposure to leadership opportunities.”

The report was unafraid to dig into bias. Chris Jones, CEO of Spectra Diversity, which consults with small- and medium-sized businesses on DEI, says the failure of most companies to explore the same issues of bias is rooted in fear. “They’re afraid to see their DEI results from a survey,” she says, “but need not fear: Most organizations are truly average. Only a few are stellar or truly awful.” She says it’s crucial to alter “the policies, practices and procedures which serve to perpetuate systemic racism and ingrained, unacknowledged bias” inside a company.

Apple

Known on many fronts for its diversity efforts, including the constant focus on making technology accessible to people of all abilities, the consumer electronics company has also recently corrected for a dearth of women employees among its ranks.

Its latest Inclusion & Diversity report shows a definitive upward trend in hiring and promoting women. In fact, since 2014, Apple’s workforce has seen an 87% increase in female employees across the world. Overall, its female workforce increased 89%, and it now reports that women hold 34% of its R&D leadership roles. (The company also increased hiring of Black employees in the U.S. by 71% and Hispanic/Latinx employees by 104% since 2014.)

Beyond a stated commitment to have more inclusive representation throughout the company and at the leadership level, Apple has fostered greater gender inclusivity through a number of actions. The company maintains 1:1 pay equity by gender and doesn’t ask for salary history. Women hold half of the company’s board and committee leadership positions. It ties the company’s “Apple values” – including inclusion and diversity – into the company’s annual cash incentive program for executives. More than 55,000 Apple employees belong to internal groups that include Women@Apple as well as others like Accessibility@Apple, SouthAsian@Apple and Veterans@Apple.

According to Gray of Uncomfortable Revolution, the most successful DEI companies can look squarely at issues like the lack of gender balance inside an organization and talk openly about what is lost when a workplace is overly homogenous. “A lot of companies do what I call ‘DEI Light,’” she says. “You know, ‘Make sure everyone puts their pronouns in their email signature!’ – and their focus stays there. But they’re not willing to have uncomfortable conversations.”

Earlier this summer, ASI held “Defining Diversity & Inclusion in 2022 & Beyond,” an industry webinar hosted by Tim Andrews, president and CEO of ASI, and Stephanie Turner-Scott, executive director of ASI Show operations and a member of ASI’s Diversity & Inclusion Council. The duo welcomed a collection of industry experts in the areas of workplace diversity and inclusion.

Sarah Protzman Howlett is a Boulder, Colorado-based journalist and editor whose work has appeared in national, local and trade magazines.