In this episode, Michelle discusses the intricacies of how organizations can determine which social issues to weigh in on, especially given the highly charged nature of today's social environment. Michelle provides a detailed framework used to help organizations navigate this complex landscape. The framework includes key questions that companies should ask themselves to ensure that their responses align with their core values, business strategy, employee promise, and stakeholder interests. Additionally, Michelle emphasizes the importance of maintaining consistency between internal and external communications to avoid presenting a contradictory image to the world.

The episode serves as a practical guide for DEI leaders who often grapple with the dilemma of making public statements on various social justice issues. Using examples like the Israel-Palestine conflict and the outpouring of support following George Floyd's murder, Michelle illustrates the consequences of hastily made statements. By adhering to a structured approach, organizations can more effectively manage their responses, mitigate risks, and potentially drive meaningful change.

To connect with and learn more, visit: https://www.equity-at-work.com/

Key Topics Discussed:

• Introduction to Social Issue Responses
• Importance of Aligning Internal and External Communications
• Framework for Deciding When to Weigh In on Social Issues
• Questions to Guide Decision-Making
• Impact on Business and Employees
• Alignment with Strategy and Values
• Consistency with Employee Promises
• Influence on Customers and Stakeholders
• Reputation Management
• Potential to Drive Change
• Importance of Internal Transparency and Communications
• Practical Examples and Risk Mitigation

I'm Michelle Bogan, founder and CEO of Equity at Work, and this is your DEI Minute, your go to podcast for leaders looking to navigate the ever evolving landscape of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Whether you're just starting out with DEI or looking to sustain your long term successes, each episode will provide you with actions you can take to move DEI forward at your organization all in 15 minutes or less. In today's episode, I'm gonna cover how you can decide which social issues that you should weigh in on as an organization. This has been a really tough one for people in different DEI related roles to maneuver and navigate through because so much out in the world today is just so charged, and it can often feel like, you know, you're never gonna make everybody happy. You may not make anyone happy with some of the statements you made, but you also may be facing a lot of pressure from some of your employees to come out and make statements and take a stand on certain social issues. So what I'd like to do is give you some guidance that we've come up with at Equity to Work for our clients on how to kind of navigate this, what can feel like a bit of a minefield. Today, almost every public topic can feel like a hot button issue. And really making sure that you develop a good set of internal and external communication guidelines for your organization can be just a great way for you to become really clear on what you should and should not say internally and externally.

I would say as a general rule of thumb, anything you're gonna say externally certainly needs to mirror what you're actually not only what you're communicating internally, but also mirror the culture and the values and the promises that you make to your employees and and business partners and others that you work with internally so that you're not feeling like you're presenting sort of 2 different versions of your organization to the world. So that is that's definitely the overarching rule to follow. But what you really wanna have beyond that is once you've established that, what you really want to make sure you do is have a framework that makes it really clear that what you are choosing to weigh in on, as well as what you're choosing not to weigh in on, follows a trail of logic. So it makes a lot of logical sense that you're doing that consistently and that you're doing it consistently both internally and externally in terms of the language you're choosing and how deep you go on any one issue and which issues you do and don't decide to comment on. You know, we've seen a lot of organizations feel like they have to rush to comment on things that are happening out in the world. You know, recent examples, of course, include the Israel Palestine conflict. When George Floyd was murdered, that's when we saw a flurry of, certainly, very well intentioned outpouring of support. But a lot of times, those organizations got called out for not providing the same sort of equitable experiences to their black employees as what they were claiming to want to provide sort of out in the world.

So being really careful about that is important. And getting your internal house in order is the top priority before you worry about what you're gonna communicate externally. But here is a a framework that we use with our clients as a series of questions to help them decide, you know, is this an issue that we should weigh in on? 1st question is, does this directly impact our business, our employees, and or our business partners? So if you wanna use the Israel Palestine conflict as a example, Do you have employees who identify as Jewish or Muslim and or, you know, have roots in Israel and or Palestine and or the Middle East? Same with your business partners. And do you have offices there? Do you conduct business there? All of those would be things that you wanna consider as part of that first question. The second question is, does weighing in on this issue align with our strategy and values? And sort of with that, does not weighing in on the issue go against our strategy and values? So, again, with this, you've gotta have a really clear definition of your mission, your strategy, your culture, your value proposition, both internally and externally to your customers or clients or whoever you're serving as as your organization. You wanna make sure there's direct alignment there. So very important question to answer. The third one is, does weighing in on this issue align with our employee promise and or value proposition? So we see a lot of organizations that have a clear mission.

They may have a vision for where they wanna go over the next, you know, 3, 5, 10 years, or maybe even longer. They've established some values, but they may not have turned that into, you know, what is the commitment that we make turn to our employees of the kind of environment we're gonna provide to them, the kind of career pathway we're gonna invite to them, kind of support we're gonna provide to them. If you haven't done that work yet, this is a good place to pause and do that. If you have done that work, then it should be pretty easy for you to answer the question of, you know, does this align with that value proposition? Number 4 is, will weighing in on this issue help us serve our customers, communities, investors, and or industry that we plan? There are some organizations that also are tied to academia, the government, etcetera. So you wanna consider sort of all of those different constituents that you serve and how important this may or may not be to those relationships and your ability to be a great partner to them and to serve them to your fullest extent. The 5th one is, will weighing in impact our reputation positively, negatively, or not at all? If our reputation could be negatively impacted and we still feel this is important, how can we best prepare for that response or mitigate that risk? There are organizations that are very social justice oriented that regardless of what somebody's opinion may be about, you know, how that impacts their reputation, they feel very strongly about going forward. If you are in an organization like that, absolutely go for it, especially if you've answered 1 through 4 in ways that you feel like it's it's compelling for you to, weigh in on that issue. But I think it's important with any external statement you make to know that there may be repercussions and just go into it being, you know, honest about that.

And if you can do a little bit of risk mitigation or planning for different responses should they come up, it certainly doesn't hurt to do that just to be a little bit more prepared. And then the final question that we ask is, can we drive change on this issue? And if so, are there others we should collaborate with proactively in alignment with our response to help make that change even bigger? You may not be able to drive change on every issue and still decide based on 1 through 5, you still wanna go forward. But I do think keeping in mind sort of what's the purpose of your statement of you deciding to weigh in and what that looks like? How many channels you're doing that through? Is it a one time thing or is it, you know, sort of an ongoing drip of information? Are you, you know, taking out a press release? Sort of how significant or or large is the communication around it. That, a lot of times, really should reflect on the kind of change that you're trying to drive or that you're trying to influence. And, again, you may decide you may not be able to drive a lot of change, but you still feel based on 1 through 5 that this is really important to you, and that is completely fine. These questions are not hard and fast, you know, decision tree questions where if you answer no to one that you kind of end, it's really more of a framework to work through so that you can get a pretty robust perspective on what you're stepping into and how to prepare for that before, just rushing to make a statement on social media or, or some other outlet. The other piece to do here is once you've developed these standards and that you've tested them, if these are the right questions for you or maybe you wanna modify them and then you've tested them with a couple of issues that have come up or or even gone back to some past things and said, you know, let's do, like, a litmus test on, you know, how does this pass that? Do we need other things to consider here? Making sure that you're taking the time to respond internally and post internally on this communication is really important before you rush to doing anything externally. Again, you know, your employees are your kind of first key constituents that you need to answer to.

You wanna probably cascade it through leadership team down, but, you know, having them be aware of any communication you're putting out publicly is really important. That way they can also be aligned and and prepared to help with any pushback or any questions, things like that. The other piece you wanna do here is help employees understand that if they do get challenges or questions or even inquiries to know more, that you've thought through how to funnel those into the organization, whether that be through a communications person or someone else that you designate for kind of external relations or or maybe if it's it's under the umbrella of investor relations if you're a public company. So transparency internally goes a long way in building trust on this stuff. And again, don't forget your employees as part of this and some of the other internal folks that are really important to you when you build this framework. But I hope that this has provided you with a little bit of guidance to help you define your own framework for how to determine what you're gonna weigh in on socially and externally related to social justice issues.

And that's a wrap. I'm Michelle Bogan, and that's your DEI Minute for today. Thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to leave us a review. If you ever have questions, please visit our website site or send us an email. You can also sign up for our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. Links to everything can be found in the episode notes. This episode was produced and edited by Podgrove with podcast art by our very own Jamie Applegate.