“It’s impossible to be on top of everything, especially when you have a network of employees that you don’t always fully control,” Taiano acknowledged.
In an effort to understand what drives loyalty to a brand and whether or not people expect retailers to engage with social issues, Accenture conducted extensive research on the American consumer. Its findings revealed that people are already shopping their values.
“Of the shoppers we surveyed, 45 percent had shifted at least 10 percent of their spending last year away from retailers that don’t reflect their values,” Taiano cited. The findings also revealed a majority of consumers don’t accept silence as a strategy when it comes to addressing mistakes; instead they want retailers to make it the mishap their responsibility and take action. “If that retailer doesn’t take responsibility, 57 percent [of the population] said they would switch to another [retailer],” Standish noted.
According to the research, issues with product assortment and store environment are the main reasons why consumers switch to other retailers. “I’m sure many of you have walked into a store and looked at the women’s hair-care section. It’s really for white women,” Standish said. “Now you’re seeing a wonderful assortment for African American women. Even though I wouldn’t buy those products because of my hair type, I love that that retailer has an inclusive assortment.”
In addition to offering more inclusive products, the study revealed that inclusive advertising like Nike’s representation of hijabi athletes and accessible touch-points like British home goods retailer Home Bargains instituting a weekly quiet hour for customers with autism.
While getting started on creating change in one’s company can be overwhelming; according to Standish, the only way to remedy that is starting at the top. “Yes you can do diversity training or hire to more accurately represent the [diversity in the] population, but this is really about culture,” she said. “If your employees start to feel the dedication of your firm to inclusion and diversity, they’re going to embrace that culture and likely be more loyal to you.”
Explaining that the industry often puts diversity before inclusion, Taiano stressed the importance of first creating a welcoming company culture to eventually attract more diversity.
The session closed with Accenture’s now-viral 2017 video “Inclusion Starts With I,” in which its employees share their experiences with bias and inclusion in the workplace through moving messages printed onto cue cards. “If you noticed, a man in the video held up a sign that said, ‘It’s the big and it’s the small,’” Taiano recalled. “It’s the little things that matter. For example, I wasn’t supposed to be here today, but one of my career goals this year was to do more public speaking. I worked with Jill on this research and she said, ‘Come up on stage and co-present with me.’ It’s behavior like that that people gravitate towards.”
